Anyone tried Ustarts Audio BD93 AK4493 DAC board from Aliexpress?

[PJN]

Bruno Putzeys makes dacs under the Mola brand. They cost around $12k each or maybe a little more. People who have heard them say they are some of he best sounding dacs in world. I'm sure an AK4493 can sound very nice compared to something worse than AK4493. However, if that AK4493 is compared to a Mola dac, then suddenly the reality becomes apparent. The AK4493 will sound considerably worse, trust me.

The thing is, you never really know what is encoded on a CD until you hear it on an exceptionally good dac. It turns out that a well recorded CD can sound astonishingly good. You will never hear everything on a well recorded CD with most dacs. Of course, whole systems have their limitations too. There may be no point in having a dac way better than the rest of a system. There should be some balance in where resources are spent.

That said, @Ghoostknight said his DAC budget was up to $1k. With that one can build a pretty good diy dac nowadays. Have to be able to solder SMD is maybe the hardest part for most people. Also have be be willing to spend the $1k and do so wisely. Trying to find ways to cut corners at every opportunity is mindset of a Aliexpress dac board designer wanting to sell you junk. Why make your own junk if you have the budget to to do it right?

Hi Mark,

I agree with your comments about the AK4493, I like the sound more than the ESS Dacs I've owned, for the money and ease of use it's a good value and good enough for most folks. However I like the sound of bmy Miro AD1862 DAC more, certainly another step up the food chain. No doubt the Mola sounds great, just beyond my budget.

 

[Ghoostknight]

For measurements the Black Lion 2x2 is probably not a good choice. Maybe read the review of its measurements at ASR. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-revolution-2x2-review-audio-interface.22141/

i choose the black lion because the folks over there seem to know how to mod things... it also sounds better than other interfaces on youtube
but yea its probably not great for measuring, i just thought i could route the audio of my future diy dac into it to atleast see obvious flaws, without going -120db down
i mainly need it since i plan to upload some comparisons (recorded speakers) of different tweaks etc to youtube, but thats another plan...

Better to get a Cosmos ADC, and a Cosmos APU. You will need a notch filter for measurements anyway.

this seems like a bargain and i completly missed this one on my research... the only similar i found was the zoom F3, i will keep the cosmos line in mind if i wanna either expirement with preamps or measurements later on i think... i also need the black lion as an bridge-device since i wanna sell my aune X8 and im not sure when my diy will be ready, its nice to have a all in one back up device for such things..

One last chance to get you to understand about AK4493, an acquaintance who visited my place twice wrote about the visit at:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/dac-recommendation.376015/post-7560022
At some point he mentioned he was using an RME ADI-2 Pro (which uses AK4493) as his dac at one point. Read what he says about it. Sure, AK4493 probably sounds a little better tha the last generation of ESS with the Hyperstream II modulator. A little bit better still isn't all that close to what is possible. That said, I get where you are coming from. I was like you a few years ago. Like you are about to do I spent money finding out what AKM dacs sound like. By all means you should go ahead and do what you have to do. However we won't be surprised if you want to try yet another dac in a year or two.

i think i got the message, i probably end up with something that i might like better than my aune x8 but there might be reason why all high end dacs use different technologies... im kinda fascinated by the holoaudio dac, tho i dont wanna go into these price regions... the thing also with a DIY dac you can steadily let flow money into it, instead of one large chunk, you can upgrade it etc ... for this reason i would be more willing to spent 3k in DIY rather than buy a readymade unit and hate or love it..

tho im not sure what i really wanna do, the thing is with my aune x8 dsd sounds superior to pcm.... i have no clue what happens if you compare this DSD to a nos dac that just accepts PCM for example, there are a few pcm only nos chips ... or i really go with the RTZ board, a diyaudio user offered me to build pcbs for me, im just not sure yet what the RTZ one costs

did someone compare RTZ to the holoaudio?