DACs | Darko.Audio

Podcast: What’s going on inside an €18,000 streaming DAC?

John Darko — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 08:03:28 +0000

€18,000? For a streaming DAC? That only does Roon? That’s an über-reductive way to look at the MU2 ‘Music Player’ from Grimm Audio. The MU2 is also a line-level pre-amplifier with balanced analogue ins and outs. it has a CD-sized control wheel inset into its inwardly-curving top plate for volume […]

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Cambridge Audio MXN10 video review

John Darko — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 17:30:09 +0000

🎥 Camera: John Darko / Olaf von Voss 🎬 Editor: John Darko 🌈 Colour: Olaf von Voss 🕺🏻 Motion GFX: John Darko 💰 Ad segment: John Darko 🎵 Song IDs? Playlists of all music heard in this video – and other videos – can be found on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/johndarko Further […]

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FiiO’s KA15 is a $109 ‘cassette tape’ dongle DAC

John Darko — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 07:34:09 +0000

New from FiiO, a fully-reworked KA15 — a dongle DAC that’s unlike other dongle DACs. USB in, analogue out. A pair of Cirrus Logic CS43198 chips takes care of the D/A conversion for PCM support up to 32bit/768kHz and DSD up to DSD256. The dual op-amps that power wired headphones […]

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In Berlin for review: the Grimm MU2

John Darko — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 10:01:30 +0000

Is the Grimm MU2 Music Player the most expensive product I’ve ever had in for review? At a cool €18,000, I think it might be. The internal 8TB SSD storage fitted to my unit is a €600 upcharge. “Music Player” is a euphemism for a streaming-centric preamplifier that includes a […]

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In Lisbon for review: the Cambridge Audio MXN10

John Darko — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 17:30:53 +0000

Cambridge Audio’s MXN10 is a streaming DAC that sells for €400. I was forced to connect it the NAD M66’s TOSLINK input after a BluOS firmware update took the NAD off my Google Home network, (almost) never to return. Neither a switch over to Ethernet nor several reboots could bring […]

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FiiO’s BTR13 is a $64 Bluetooth/USB DAC & headphone amp

John Darko — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 07:59:37 +0000

New from FiiO: the BTR13 is a thumb-sized DAC and headphone amplifier with three possible use cases: a USB DAC for PCs/Macs or streaming devices with a USB output (e.g. WiiM, Bluesound) a dongle DAC for smartphones an AAC / aptX HD / LDAC Bluetooth DAC for smartphones and PCs/Macs […]

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Second opinion: Eversolo DMP-A8 review

John Grandberg — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 11:06:22 +0000

How do you follow up on a massively successful product? That was the conundrum faced by China’s Zidoo in the wake of the runaway success of its Eversolo-branded DMP-A6: a streaming DAC which many folks (myself included) felt was one of 2023’s best new devices. Darko’s video coverage can be […]

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Bluesound teases Dirac-ready NODE Icon, 2024 NODE + NODE Nano

John Darko — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 14:25:32 +0000

“Good. Better, Best.”. Bluesound’s press notice doesn’t say those three words exactly (I’ve added them to the image above) but it’s how one might reasonably interpret today’s announcement of three new streaming DACs: the NODE Nano, the (2024) NODE and the NODE Icon. The Canadian company’s BluOS platform powers each […]

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Is FiiO’s K11 the most affordable R2R DAC available right now?

John Darko — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 07:52:57 +0000

FiiO has announced an R2R version of its K11 DAC / headphone amplifier. Ditching the Cirrus Logic silicon of its Delta-Sigma sibling, the K11 R2R uses a 24-bit R2R resistor array to decode the digital audio signals arriving at its three digital inputs: USB-C, TOSLINK and coaxial. A pair of […]

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What you need to know about iFi’s ZEN Blue 3 DAC

John Darko — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 09:20:40 +0000

iFi Audio has updated its ZEN Blue DAC to version 3 from which we now get: 24bit/96kHz USB, 24bit/192kHz coaxial and 24bit/192kHz TOSLINK inputs; aptX Lossless & LDAC-capable Bluetooth inputs; a (low-latency) aptX Lossless Bluetooth output; single-ended and balanced analogue outputs; a circuit that is not built around a system-on-a-chip […]

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TEAC loads UD-507 DAC/pre-amp with abbreviations

John Darko — Tue, 28 May 2024 10:45:50 +0000

TEAC has announced the UD-507: a two-thirds-width box that serves as a digital/analogue pre-amplifier, a D/A converter and a headphone amplifier. Up to 1.2 Watts (into 100 Ohms) of headphone drive can be had from the front panel’s three headphone sockets – single-ended quarter inch, 4.4mm balanced, XLR balanced – […]

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More thoughts on the $329 WiiM Ultra [video]

John Darko — Sun, 26 May 2024 12:08:57 +0000

There was so much reader interest in this week’s editorial about the WiiM Ultra that I’ve turned it into a video for YouTube, adding more information about the device, including a WiiM-supplied screen recording of how the room correction works. Shipping on the Ultra begins later this year. 🎥 Camera: […]

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More thoughts on the $329 WiiM Ultra

John Darko — Tue, 21 May 2024 09:09:48 +0000

One of the highlights of Munich High-End 2024 was the soon-to-be-released Ultra streaming DAC from Linkplay. Linkplay is headquartered in the USA but manufactures its WiiM-branded devices in China. We penned a half-baked preview of the Ultra here; its internal D/A converter is built around an ES9038 Q2M SABRE DAC […]

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Volumio’s Motivo joins the touchscreen streaming DAC race

John Darko — Thu, 02 May 2024 06:58:21 +0000

Five years. That’s how long Volumio’s Motivo has been in the oven. We first met its iPad-meets-DAC ambitions at Munich High-End 2019 but only recently has its design been finalised for the unit to formally debut as a finished product at Munich High-End 2024. The Motivo is a streaming source, […]

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Coming soon: WiiM Ultra vs. Shanling SM1.3

John Darko — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 08:57:35 +0000

If the touchscreen-fronted streaming DAC door was opened by Hifi Rose and then kicked clean off its hinges by Eversolo, WiiM and Shanling will soon walk through with touchscreen streaming DACs of their own. WiiM teased its soon-to-be-launched Ultra in a forum post the week before last. Specifics are thin on […]

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LAiV Harmony DAC review

Srajan — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 08:12:30 +0000

KrautFi? It’s hifi from Germany. Yet nobody calls it that. So why ChiFi? More than a decade ago that audio slang stood for cheap‘n’cheerful kit from the Middle Kingdom routinely based on tubes. The slightly derogatory – if then perhaps not entirely unfounded – connotation was unproven reliability; possibly dubious […]

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