Yeah so the select 2 has been the best I’ve heard, but it’s also a super substantial investment. I could go for one if I sold off all my other dacs, but I don’t know if I would want to do that. I think at my current level of setups, I can’t really justify it, I don’t think I would really be getting the benefits that has to offer especially in a headphone setup. I would first need to entirely revamp my 2ch which would also be incredibly expensive. Do I think I would still hear the difference and find it an upgrade in my current setups? Actually probably yes, but would that difference be worth the cost in my case? Probably not.
There’s other dacs that are at or above the select 2 as well, but I’ve purposely prevented myself from listening to anything above so I don’t have to think about that lol
And also, I still am not fully behind putting all of my eggs in one basket, I still like some variety and multiple chain options, but that way of thinking has definitely been changing more toward a few solid chains rather than a larger amount of lesser ones. I still need to sell off more stuff, but it’s extra hard when you have stuff already since you can listen to it which makes it really hard to let go of lol
I’ve seen a few used select ii pop up and it is something I could swing right now if I really wanted to, but it would honestly require that I change everything and revamp everything else, which I’m really not ready to do (and wouldn’t be able to afford doing after buying a select ii lol, at least for a few years)
Decided to remove my old comparison to be rewritten at some point (moreso just adjust formatting and switch around some rankings rather than redo the actual listening, a bit too late for that lol), but instead did the promised pt2 for the 5k new and below (somewhat). It’s a fair bit shorter this time though lol
Still tweaking the comparisons a bit, but I think for the most part it represents what I feel at the current moment
No, it actually has decent single ended out to where I wouldn’t have concerns running it single ended. Did I forget to note that on the aqua? (I did lol) I tried to make sure to note bal vs se if applicable and other settings/quirks in the “other things to note” section of each dac
They tend to get fairly low used, which make them a fair bit more attainable than things from sw1x, rockna, and holo for example (among other brands that are around that price point that I’d have included) so good value when buying used
So now that I’ve revamped my speaker setup by ending up with some Verity Lohengrin IIS, and recently upgraded source gear for that as well with Lamm LL1.1 Sig preamps and ML3 Sig power amps, I think it’s somewhat time to make that next dac step, if there is actually one. Currently running only a Totaldac d1-twelve-mk2 system with monoblock d1 drivers and a d1 digital mk2 as well, all with live powers, and for incoming digital it’s an Antipodes K50. As always cables better than bargain bin.
I’ve got an incoming APL DSD-MR MK2 on loan, and am thinking of pressuring a friend to let me borrow their full CH precision dac stack as well. I CAN NOT do what I did in the past and buy a fair amount to test, I already blew most of what I have on the aforementioned upgrades and cannot just grab a couple without thinking lol, I can basically only try and buy one at a time unless I can get demos or loaners. This being said, I don’t really know what else I want to try out. I’d personally like to try the new Trinity Silver Reference but I can’t really do that easily, I would also like to try the Lampizator Horizon but I will wait until they drop to half price used before I do that. I have somewhat ruled out MSB and Nagra options since I don’t think they would fit my system (and are somewhat questionable value for me, the totaldac has shown me what good high end value is lol, at least for new prices).
At the moment I’ve tried a lot of the remaining dacs I have left in my setup (kassandra ii ref, m21p, mystique evo pro, and some of the lower end ones I still have around), and it’s clear that the totaldac brings out the best in the system in terms in synergy and also technical ability, that test was so painfully apparent that it’s really made me think about what’s past the totaldac since the rest of the system will so easily showcase that. I do wish I had this setup when I had a lot of the dacs in my original comparison as well as it would have been really interesting, but I couldn’t have had both lol. Basically what I’m getting to does anyone know of any dacs worthwhile looking into outside of the aforementioned that would be worth trying to get a listen of? I’m really not too concerned about signature or voicing as long as it’s well executed/refined, although if it has terrible synergy with the lamms and the verity that would kinda be an issue lol. My chain is also single ended, so something that doesn’t have too gimped single ended is also critical as well. If you guys have any ideas or things to look into it would be greatly appreciated.
Also since I don’t think there’s really that much dac discussion on this site anymore in general, out of curiosity, what are your guys favorite dacs? As in just basically what have you tried and out of those what did you like the most? Regardless of price bracket or anything and not in one specific category, just whatever has been the most enjoyable or worthwhile to you, any experiences would be interesting
@rmsanger I don’t really know if there’s going to be too much evolution on this thread either here nor on Sonus lol, I should prob just stop while I’m ahead and be content with my setup lol. The main reason I really wanted to try the APL was because I don’t really have a dac that does DSD all that well anymore (the nagra was amazing with dsd, as was the pacific), and I do have a fair amount of sacd that I listen to often, so I do think I care about it enough to potentially justify that
yep I deleted my post after I read your latest… I thought for some reason your original post was in re-construction mode but then I read that part. I imagine you got tired of addressing the responses. I probably read the original write and 2 followups perhaps a few dozen times. It was pretty helpful in aligning my own budget and where I think I want my chain to eventually go.
It could be, if I end up with more free time, but I’ve somewhat taken it down because I feel like with some recent developments in my setup, I don’t know if I was giving these dacs the most fair chance in the past due to certain limitations with my older setup mainly being digital source and how things were routed and cabled (it’s still up hosted on Sonus but is unlisted and password protected while I debate updating/refreshing it a bit, pm me if you want access to it). Still think it’s accurate enough that I could have left it up, but I wanted to move it to an article based format rather than deal with the limitations of forum posts, and refresh it while I was at it (but not like I can go back and do any revaluations, just might try to better clarify the thoughts I already had)
Not really, was fun, although not like I really got too many pms about it since there aren’t many people looking in this dac range, at least in this forum and I didn’t put it anywhere else (at least publicly)
I’m honestly surprised anyone would want to sit through all that to read it once lol. I still want to go in and make pt2 more detailed, but I did say it would be shorter this time for real so I might as well keep it short
Well that’s good to hear, glad there was some value to be found in it
Thx thx, yes it’s pretty awesome, really just finishing touches and ensuring everything works perfectly together at this point
I don’t really know if I will comment any further on changes I do to my setup or my finding going forward because it’s likely not helpful for a variety of reasons (far past what mostly anyone on here would be interested in, I only really have one system suitable for testing anything further so without the context of multiple setups it’s not really all that helpful for comparison, and I just likely wouldn’t be able to get ahold of multiple things at once for more direct comparisons)
Oh yeah, new dac comparison, this is the last one:
This one is a lot more personal focused toward my own setup than the last one (which was basically a wide range of dacs for a wide range of setups), basically the final conclusion to trying a bunch of dacs and deciding what I want to live with and not really care about much else.
Tried writing it in a somewhat different style and focus from the previous comparisons, not sure I’d say it would be all that helpful to many, but figured if I had all these in together, it would be a waste if I didn’t write something on them lol. Spoiler they’re all pretty fucking fantastic
Basically what I’d call the end of the line for me, the end of this thread, and the end of caring about any other dacs that are either already out, or will come out in the future lol. But if I can hold myself to that or not, who knows.
Hi sorry for replying to such an old thread but I’ve been looking into the La Voce 3 and found this comparison very helpful.
I was wondering if you recall what sample rate/bit depth you were feeding the two to compare. The youtube reviewer, WaveTheory, recently evaluated La Voce and found it satisfying by and large with the caveat that he found standard red book resolution rather harsh and fatiguing. That’s only one man’s opinion, of course, but since the vast majority of what I’d be feeding the day would be from CD’s non-upsampled, it did make me pump the brakes while I search for more opinions on how it handles 16 bit/44.1khz.
I saw in a different post that you were using the USB input. Do you recall if some of that was 16/44.1, and if so, would you say that what you wrote above applies to what you heard at that sample rate?
First off always remember what one person hears may not be what you would hear. The Dac of which you speak was mine that I had sent to @WaveTheory to review. I fed it via USB and then out to my amp’s via AES, a lot of the files were 16/44 and some were up to 24/192. I sold that Dac eventually and stepped up to a Rockna mostly for various features as the LaVoce S3 was a NOS Dac. I wished to be able to upsample if I chose to. I never felt anything harsh or fatiguing about it at all. I trust @M0N and @WaveTheory for their experience but once again you may feel differently.
Thank you, @Jetman, that is very helpful, indeed. The more opinions I can read the better, especially from someone like yourself who has listened to music through said equipment extensively, keeping in mind we all hear/perceive differently.
Another question regarding the LaVoce S3 I’ve been trying to look into is how difficult or even possible is it to convert an i2s HDMI signal to LaVoce’s particular pinout on its RJ45? I see at least one HDMI in to RJ45 out converter on the market, but it does not seem to be configurable. The only device I have with an i2s out is a streamer that does allow for pin configuration, so the issue would be getting the proper configuration on the RJ45 side. Perhaps the best route there would be having a having a cable special made with HDMI termination on one end and the specific pinout Aqua uses for RJ45 termination on the other.
In any case, thanks again for your input on 16/44. I see it as another solid data point to balance against what WaveTheory perceived.
I read through @MON’s incredible and exhaustive DAC comparisons but cannot recall if he mentioned the sample rate(s)/bit depth(s) he used for the project . I might look through that again to see if I overlooked it.
I also attempted to decipher the pinout for i2s but was not successful. I never went to the extent of contacting Aqua because at that point I had decided to move on from it. I read that particular article over and over but do not believe he ever mentioned. The current system I have assembled is from that article by the way. I have reached my stopping point so to speak. Not end game surely but a quite comfortable stopping point.
I didn’t really have that issue, it does sound different for redbook vs hi rez but that’s hard to truly compare, it’s been a bit but I don’t really remember that being an issue for the unit I tried. I do think this can also really depend on what’s feeding it, your digital source could play a role here in potentially causing that issue. The aqua while being on the slightly smoother side will still make poor recordings known, so that’s another consideration. To be honest with most NOS dacs I found them to generally perform better with redbook where oversampling dacs generally tended to be best with higher sample rates, but really depends on the dac at hand. With the Aqua, I found that I didn’t really have a strong preference for redbook vs high res, maybe even going to say that redbook was maybe more ideal for the design. I don’t think it’s a harsh sounding dac, but maybe you could get it to be with a specific chain
I’ve used both USB and AES or BNC, I generally found that I had a preference more toward aes/bnc with a good streamer or ddc (generally gained a bit of technical improvement with a bump in forwardness which was appreciated, USB was a bit more laid back and less technical, but with a good usb source can come close and offer a different sound), with a mix of all types of music and formats. I didn’t really do a direct comparison since unless you’re recording a sample at 16/44.1 and 24/192 and comparing the two it’s really hard to have confidence in something like that, but from just listening and using the dac for awhile I didn’t really pick up on it favoring higher res formats all that often. The only thing I really noticed was that DSD performance was lackluster compared to other dacs in this price range, and that I’d rather use PCM here.
I’ve never used their I2S so I can’t say, really personally never used I2S on most dacs so can’t say much here. I’m sure there’s a way to convert but I don’t know of it, though I do remember them claiming it was proprietary in some aspects. There’s pseudo-standardized I2S-H and I2S-E that some mfg have agreed on that you could make a conversion cable for and see, but don’t know if it would work or not
