From: Paul Porcelli, New York
From: Bobby Wang, Texas, USA
From: Chris Leake, London, UK
Then Chris sent me a more detailed review after more listening with his new "mistress". hee hee...
Yeah, folks. Keep them coming! Please, send the good and bad ones, so that everyone is aware of the mojo and lack-of herein. Helps fence-sitters make decisions. : )
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hi yeo,
i've been listening intently to my(your) 1545 dac since putting it in my
system. 'burning in' is not to be taken lightly. in the last 4-5 days there
has been dramatic improvment. since my first nos dac(1543), I wondered if I
would be able to surpass it's sound quality with anything I could afford.
with my NEC cd-rom drive and DacKit , my sytem was transformed. i purchased
your 1545 only because it was different than what i had and , well , it was
cheap! i expected little or no change. maybe even less? i must tell you now
that it has indeed surpassed any and all my expectations. this is not cd
sound. it is musical and real. everything i found in the 1543 with more
openness and truer mid-range. it gets more so the longer i use it. i
thank -you . i really do. paul
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Hi Yeo...I finished the kit last night (using 33K and 2/3vdd) and
listened to it. This is one amazing little DAC. The sonic on this
thing is incredible!!! The sound stage is very lively and open. I
heard a lot of little things that I didn't hear before with my $3000 CD
player (YBA CD3). I can't believe my ears...I'm going to try the 22K
and 11K tonight to see if I notice any difference. So far the 33K is
not too sweet on the mid-range...
Bobby
Few days later
I did try the 22K last night and it really opened up the highs on it.
This thing is getting better by the minute.
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Hello Yeo,
I devoted Monday and Tuesday evening to building your DAC. Plugged
it in (having dutifully checked VDD as instructed) and out flowed music !
My impression? Well, first let me explain that I've tried DACs,
upgraded components in DACs, cure all miracle digital and analogue cables,
DIPs, and finally a Passive Digital Antidote. Wondering all along whether
the hundreds I've spent on bits and pieces would not have better been
spent in one lump on one pricey CDP battleship.
Never ! All the things I've learnt and all those little triumphs
with the soldering iron - I would never have missed them. And I should
never have had the immense fun and good fortune to come across you.
Uh... what was I saying. Yes: my impression. Right now I'm
listening to a cassette tape (yes - I know, how could I? at least it's a
little bit of analogue from the old days), which I recorded from the 1545
DAC.
Now this, this is much more palatable on the ear than anything I've
had so far. I'm listening to an ADD recording of the 70's - Vienna Philharmonic
- belting out a big bold symphony. Up till now I've had to endure a curious
sense that certain parts of the orchestra (notable the violins) had been
overdubbed or were playing in another location and just amplified. Soured at
the highest frequencies - the characteristic digital 'tang', yeuk.
But with your DAC, although those strings aren't perfect, there's
nothing holding them back; nothing 'clipping' them. Have we found a new
imperfection that we can at least live with? Analogue LPs weren't perfect.
I daresay I never heard this particular recording when I owned it on LP
without distortion in the high violin passages. Is there such a thing as a
more 'natural' imperfection. If there is your DAC mercifully manages it.
I'm staggered. Wonderful. Better than I thought I was going to
hear a CD sound !!!!
I shall check the unit when I get home. In the meantime I've these
recordings to listen to all day, and even the same recordings from my
MicroDAC with which to compare. But I can already tell:- by the way I just
can't stop listening to the recording from your DAC; that could certainly
not be said of the MicroDAC.
From: Chris Leake, London, UK
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Hello Yeo,
Well, all my scares over concerning construction of the DAC, and a
little bit of playing in now having taken place, I thought you'd like some
listening impressions.
Last night I picked two of my favourite pieces to evaluate:
Stravinsky's Rites of Spring (Abaddo) and Havergal Brian's 3rd Symphony.
The former is quite a concert piece, wildly varied instrumental
effects and complex rhythms. One thing struck me straight away: there was
far more low level detail than I'd ever heard. At one point the double
basses drag a deep sustained note whilst the woodwind sing Stravinsky's
derivation of Russian folk tunes and create a weird ancient sounding
landscape. Now, I was listening on headphones (marriage and musical taste
don't mix, do they) and I thought that low scraping in the double basses
was coming from somewhere outside: a lorry or something ticking over
outside the house. But it wasn't, it was a genuine effect in the music ! -
a low sinister scraping - fabulous. The wildest passages, which before had
quite frankly hurt my ears with digital hardness, instead made my heart race
faster - the way Stravinsky intended. After the final note (when the maiden
dies, having danced herself to death) I was expecting the customary unpleasant
ringing in the ears, which I had associated with CD sound. Instead there was
eerie silence and a sense of emotional exhaustion: once again exactly what
Stravinsky had calculated.
There's certainly a much greater precision in this DAC. Not bad
fed off a Cambridge Disc Magic transport into a humble Marantz PM4000
integrated amp. There now seems to be an overall synergy doing its best
for the music. The Brian Symphony has plenty of keening high string
passages punctuated by cymbal and drum clashes. The timing of the
percussion is much improved, everything's tight; and the strings are part
of the orchestra, not sounding overdubbed with a synthesizer (and a bad
one at that); which, once again, was what I had come to think of as CD
sound.
Of course, as you would agree, bad recordings are beyond salvation
(I wondered why they were selling of the CDs so soon after issuing them).
But without your DAC I wouldn't now be starting to pick out the good from
the bad.