First and foremost I have not had experience with many external DACs travelling and have been out the country more than 170 days this year consulting to banks and often sitting at a desk typing reports, doing fraud investigations or 'reading AVForums'. I brought one headphone (B&O Beoplay H2) and earbuds (Sennheiser CX 300 II) as the B&O are cheap enough to leave somewhere (did that more than once while travelling) and the CX 300 II I heard was nice value for money.
Using the B&O H2 in the hotel room predominantly I compared the output from the normal audio output from a laptop and the uDSD. The uDSD of course is better having the USB power assisting giving more headroom. It plays too loud when volume is all the way up and this is nice as I have been annoyed before when you cannot get enough volume from a device using headphones. The separation is improved and the spread is nice through the B&O. Lower frequencies nicely controlled and both the mids (vocal) and the upper frequencies sound sweeter. Really a positive and palatable improvement.
Using the earphones (Sennheiser) I was actually shocked when I listened to my first song while at work. This is 'Charlie Haden & Antonio Forcione - Heartplay' and I found the recording noise prominent (background hiss) in the recording, something I have not heard that clear before. Now this could be a combination using the CX 300 II as this is a double new combination. Will need to listen through the headphones when I get back to the hotel. The next recording was 'Norah Jones - Come Away with Me (24/192)' which was absolutely well presented through the NuPrime playing PCM at the 192kHz and 24-bit depth. You need no more than that... I personally think anything over 96kHz is possibly wasted on me
The driver required for Windows installed painlessly and plugging in the uDSD into a USB and selecting the uDSD as my default device sorted playback. Now removing defaults back to my laptop sound device and plugging in automatically streams through the uDSD.
The device is small and the build quality is god. Looks the part!
It has a digital out which allows you to convert from your laptop, via USB to Coax (DSD via PCM) to another DAC. Very nice touch.
The analog out is fixed so you cannot use the uDSD as a pre (would have been a bonus) but possibly the line-out for the headphones can be used. I have not tested that.
The final question would be.. Is it worth it? I would give it a thumbs up :thumbs: It is a cost effective unit that makes your music just so much more enjoyable. This device will be a travel companion from now on. I will only sell it if there is a uDSD Mark II
Other notes:
- I tried powering it using both USB 2 (500 mA @ 5V) and 3 (900 mA @ 5V) and I found no difference in the quality of the sound.
- It is nice and heavy for its size but thick analog cables with move it around so can make a nice stand for it if you want to use it is your main system. It is good enough as a DAC for a main system.
- It does warm up a little so you know that there is some horsepower under the hood.
Using the B&O H2 in the hotel room predominantly I compared the output from the normal audio output from a laptop and the uDSD. The uDSD of course is better having the USB power assisting giving more headroom. It plays too loud when volume is all the way up and this is nice as I have been annoyed before when you cannot get enough volume from a device using headphones. The separation is improved and the spread is nice through the B&O. Lower frequencies nicely controlled and both the mids (vocal) and the upper frequencies sound sweeter. Really a positive and palatable improvement.
Using the earphones (Sennheiser) I was actually shocked when I listened to my first song while at work. This is 'Charlie Haden & Antonio Forcione - Heartplay' and I found the recording noise prominent (background hiss) in the recording, something I have not heard that clear before. Now this could be a combination using the CX 300 II as this is a double new combination. Will need to listen through the headphones when I get back to the hotel. The next recording was 'Norah Jones - Come Away with Me (24/192)' which was absolutely well presented through the NuPrime playing PCM at the 192kHz and 24-bit depth. You need no more than that... I personally think anything over 96kHz is possibly wasted on me
The driver required for Windows installed painlessly and plugging in the uDSD into a USB and selecting the uDSD as my default device sorted playback. Now removing defaults back to my laptop sound device and plugging in automatically streams through the uDSD.
The device is small and the build quality is god. Looks the part!
It has a digital out which allows you to convert from your laptop, via USB to Coax (DSD via PCM) to another DAC. Very nice touch.
The analog out is fixed so you cannot use the uDSD as a pre (would have been a bonus) but possibly the line-out for the headphones can be used. I have not tested that.
The final question would be.. Is it worth it? I would give it a thumbs up :thumbs: It is a cost effective unit that makes your music just so much more enjoyable. This device will be a travel companion from now on. I will only sell it if there is a uDSD Mark II
Other notes:
- I tried powering it using both USB 2 (500 mA @ 5V) and 3 (900 mA @ 5V) and I found no difference in the quality of the sound.
- It is nice and heavy for its size but thick analog cables with move it around so can make a nice stand for it if you want to use it is your main system. It is good enough as a DAC for a main system.
- It does warm up a little so you know that there is some horsepower under the hood.
