Initial impressions emotiva DAC

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Rodney_gold

R.I.P. 5 June 2018
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Thanks to Waterhond for loaning me his XDA-1 to audition.
I dont have a stand alone dac in my system and often have need of one. I have a Logitech
Transporter - the audiophile verson of the Squeezebox (a $2k item) which is supposed to have
one of the best dacs out there in it. I use it as a source for my headphone listening , that is
currently my "reference" dac -  I have never really liked it finding it somewhat lifeless and clinical.
Criticise it on the slimdevices forums and you get beset by a horde of rabid fan boys.

Anyway on to the DAC..Great build quality , I didnt have the remote but have seen it , front panel
looks quite high tech and more upmarket that you expect  , backlit buttons and a nice display -
excellent for the price point.. back panel has every input/output you will ever need.

I have a Graham Slee Solo headphone amp with the upgraded PSU1 which is pretty decent , not
up there with the megabuck stuff , but it is SS and thus has very little colouration unlike valve HP
amps , it also has 2 inputs and a toggle switch to flip between em , thus is capable of directly
comparing 2 sources.  I listened using Senheisser HD800's which are very revealing
headphones.

I used analog out via RCA from the transporter and the same for the Emotiva into the solo  I used
audioquest Diamond interconnects for both and used the SPDIF out of the transporter into the
emotiva - so I was directly comparing the dac sections of both units with the Transporter also
acting as the SPDIF source.
Both DACS are level matched in that they output the std 2v, both have vol control which was at
max , thus defeated and bypassed.

Differences were very evident right from word go , I played a big variety of music , from the
Obligatory Krall's Love Scenes , some Dub (accidentally selected) , classical , some test tracks ,
Acoustic Alchemy , Dire Straits , David Benoit , Brian Bromberg , Ashkenazy and so on so
covered the full spectrum of recording quality and music I know.
To make things short - it was very obvious that one unit had a much better defined bass and a
lot more sparkle and air than the other and that was the Emotiva - it also revealed a lot more low
level detail , but had a slightly more recessed midrange than the Transporter. It seemed at first to
have less very low bass slam , but on further listening , it was evident that the transporter
seemed to emphasise the lower midbass region - somewhat like small speakers that try to
deliver "big" bass. TP's bass was woolly compare the Emotiva

The Transporter had a "warmer" sound in the vocal midrange , but was slightly coloured compared to
the emotiva . Treble on both units was almost on par , no sibilance or harsheness. The
transporters overall sound was veiled compared to the Emotiva with a smaller soundstage ,
albeit headphones are not the best items to evaluate soundstage with , the 800's due to their
drivers not being on ear are not bad at it tho. The Bass definition on the emotiva was miles better
than the Transporter. As to low level detail: I was playing Alan Parsons sound check 2 , uncompressed vocal and
instrumental tracks , buried deep in the background you can barely hear other sounds of other
chans in the mix , these were very clear on the emotiva and more mushy and muddled and just
amorphous noise on the TP

I then took out the generic cheapy SPDIF cable I was using , and replaced it with a Kimber
illuminati d60 - there was a slight improvement , but nothing worth the price of one vs the other.
I then used the AES/EBU digital output of the transporter in conjunction with the SPDIF co axial
and was VERY suprised to find that the Emotiva using AES input  was quite a bit worse
sounding than using its SPDIF in.. whether this is the DAC or the Transporters fault , I cant
tell..Sean Adams , the designer of the Transporter is not an AES fanatic and I think they paid less
than good attention to it.
Both Dacs do high rez music , the TP does 24/96 and the Emotiva does 24/192 , I have only one
24/192 cd but have a lot of 24/96 and 24/48 music. When playing 24/96 music , the differences
between both dacs were slightly less pronounced but the Emotiva's aforementioned
characteristics still came thru.

I tried AES in when playing high rez and there was no huge difference - however ,
when I switched back to Coax from AES on the emotiva - I was shocked , the sound was
dreadful , sounded like a poor mono recording , I switched back to to an unused input and then
back to COAX and the good sound came back , there must be a glitch in the Emotivas software
where it gets a bad lock or something or it downsamples when you go tween AES and SPDIF
while playing High rez..its really something that is not an issue in reality...

I never tried the vol control as I wasnt using the DAC as a pre and I never tried the USB..I'm of
the opinion that USB in or out in terms of music is never good without all those asynchronous
convertor add ons , but I must say , I am not well versed in using USB for music. If you buy the
dac for USB input , you need to test it for yourself.

I then replaced my Transporter with a Squeezebox Touch - just for the touches excellent SPDIF
output and there was a slight improvement over using the transporters SPDIF.

The overall initial sysnopsis after listening to 6 or so hours of music on a well run in unit is that it
is exceptional value for money
In the main , the DAC was a big improvement over what I currently have , it is not a smooth and
liquid dac , it is fairly revealing without being hard or harsh - it is musical in that it makes the best
of what you have got and that the music seems to have a lot more drive and impact , it isnt
musical if you are after a valve sound or are trying to tame harsh sources.
I'll try it in a few more configurations , I have Active speakers that take balanced inputs , so am
keen to try the emotiva using its balanced outputs (the transporter also has em)
Also bear in mind that my listening session has been real short - often one needs to spend a lot
of time to more fully quantify differences and to form an overall impression , often even if a unit
does do some stuff better than others , the sum of its "better" parts may not be better.
Watch this space - I got the weekend to play!!
 
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