New DAC - JDS Labs ODAC

[John EH]

Rolled in a JDS Labs ODAC yesterday in place of the NuForce UDAC2 which went to work and I also got a Nuforce UDAC2SE which went to my upstairs system.

Anyway the first thing I noticed about the ODAC is that it is tiny.  I sure got the impression from the web page that it was a bit larger than it was.

I guess the big story behind the ODAC is some internet guy named NwAvGuy bought a Nuforce UDAC a couple years ago and put it on the bench and made a blog with his findings which were pretty negative as far as technical specs and numbers went.  He also posted his back and forth with the company.

Nuforce claimed to tune for sound and NwAvGuy had a hand in designing the ODAC based on technical specifications purity or in other words the lab equipment says it has the best stats.

As a tube listener I'm aware that distortion is somewhat pleasing to the ears when implemented properly so good numbers don't sway me very much. What my ears hear is what matters to me.

So I dropped it in the system and the first thing I noticed is that the faceplate has the input (mini USB) and the output (3.5mm) on it.  In my system that puts wires sticking forward and just messy and not attractive.  When turned the other way it just looks black.  No marking, no ports, nothing.

I took my vinyl sign machine and emailed JDS Labs and asked for a vector graphic of their company.  To my surprise about a minute later I got it.

So now it at least looks like something and not a blank block.

But that is much ado about nothing.  Do the purity of the specs make it sound good?

In a word.  YES.  It sounded amazing.  Then the next time I used it it sounded kind of digital and the female voice sounded kind of edgy or something.  Hard to describe.  Kind of sterile.

Two more listening sessions and a swap to a short cable with ferrite rings on it (I never have used the supplied cable so I can't comment on it) and the edginess or whatever I was hearing is gone.  It's warm now.

Well recorded music sounds awesome.  Best DAC I've listened to by far.  I'd call this a reference DAC.

Soundstage is HUGE!  Instruments are well separated.  Voices sound right.  I can hear toe tapping sometimes.  Very revealing.

Seems to just be getting better as well.

I am a firm believer that expensive DAC's can be snake oil.  I think as the NwAvGuy and JDS Labs state it seems to be the implementation.  I know the Bottlehead guys are working on a DAC and you can bet that's what they are doing.

I remember some years ago someone asking the famous photographer Ansel Adams what the best camera was and his response basically was any modern camera will do.  They are all good enough.  And of course this was the 1920's or 30's.

Anyway I think the same can be applied to DAC's.  Probably all the chips are good enough but the implementation is what nets you the beautiful sound and that seems to be what the ODAC designers claim to have done.

I've only listened to the Nuforce UDAC2SE once so far so I'll reserve comment on it.  It sounds okay but of course they claim to tune to the ear.  And that's fine if the designer likes the same kind of stuff I like or listen for. 

I think that's why I love Bottlehead gear so much because the guys that do the R&D probably listen close to the same way I do.

Anyway the ODAC is a keeper and while I'm tempted to roll my other DAC's in and out and I think the ODAC has found a permanent home.  I think it is that good.

John

 

[earwaxxer]

Interesting review. I have also been following NuForce for some years. Never bit on any of their kit. I think their prices are too high for their signature stuff.

 

[Paul Birkeland]

I guess the big story behind the ODAC is some internet guy named NwAvGuy bought a Nuforce UDAC a couple years ago and put it on the bench and made a blog with his findings which were pretty negative as far as technical specs and numbers went.  He also posted his back and forth with the company.

Nuforce claimed to tune for sound and NwAvGuy had a hand in designing the ODAC based on technical specifications purity or in other words the lab equipment says it has the best stats.

This is all NwAvGuy really cares about, if you contacted him and told him you were evaluating his equipment on single ended tube amplification, he would possibly have some unkind words for you.  It is also worth mentioning that very, very good lab results can be obtained by using as much negative feedback as a given component will allow, but this really compresses dynamics and can lead to a sterile and harsh presentation that doesn't persist well in the long term.

A lot of drama can be stewed up if you just buy a piece of audio gear and start measuring it before you sit down and listen to it and form your own impressions.  I'd recommend getting used to the sound of his DAC, then roll one of your other DACs back into that system in a few weeks and report back.

-PB

 

[Armaegis]

I probably have a bigger pile of Nuforce gear than most. I wasn't particularly wowed by the udac or udac2, but I really like their HDP. I have their higher end DAC-100 as well which is quite nice, but I feel the HDP is easily the better value. 

Personally, I won't touch either the O2 or odac. Nwavguy makes some valid points and his blog is/was reasonably educational, but his behaviour and attitude were unprofessional and outright crass as times. People spouting off measurements and figures is nothing new in the industry, so he built his name by climbing up and stomping down the backs of others.

 

[John EH]

The NwAvGuy stirs up more discussion than I thought.

I didn't really factor it in my purchase although I did see and peruse the blog a little before I made the purchase.

I'm experimenting with DAC's since buying the Raspberry Pi and putting squeezeplug on it.  These DAC's are cheap enough for me to buy and roll in and out.  I don't really care about the hype one way or the other.

After I wrote this last night I went upstairs and listened to the Nuforce UDAC2SE for the second time.  It's also a fine sounding DAC.  Regarding earwaxxer's comment on price the SE I just bought was $124 and the upgrade kit from UDAC2 to SE is now $70.  So it's pretty cheap now.  Makes me think something else is coming out.

I guess the biggest take away from all this is that there is a lot of marketing going on as it seems to be highly competitive. My only in store experience has been in Hiroshima in a high end audio store.  It's pretty interesting to me that some DAC's are as small as the HiFiMeDIY Dac and some as big as a VCR.  They all do the same thing which is to convert digital to analog.

I have an Aircraft Visual Landing Aid which has a DAC board in it.  I'd love to yank it out and feed a signal through it and see what it sounds like.  It's a 5 volt board and built for the Navy so it it thick, heavy and robust. 

Anyway the high end stuff didn't impress me at all other than the fact it looked really good and had fancy LED's or LCD's on it.  From a purist standpoint just give me the converter.

I'm still pretty impressed with the ODAC.  It really does so far outshine everything I've listened to so far.  I thought people were sneaking up behind me last night listening to Rickie Lee Jones ~ The Duchess of Coolsville. 

John

 

[earwaxxer]

I might have to pick one of those up. I think my Schiit just fried. I had both analog outputs connected. Something isnt right. Not workin. Anyho.. I subbed my old MSB Link DAC lll in the front end. Not bad. I think I'll listen to it for awhile. Its definitely 'mellow'. Not sure if thats rolled off, or just nice and mellow.

 

[4krow]

'Earic'  Does fried shiit stink?

 

[John EH]

'Earic'  Does fried shiit stink?

I always wanted to buy a Schiit just so I could write a review.

~  Best Schitt in years!

~ I can't believe the sounds coming out of my Schitt this morning!

 

[earwaxxer]

'Earic'  Does fried shiit stink?

Not really. I have to pop the case and see/smell whats wrong. Not a happy camper. POS.

 

[Doc B]

I was at a Bay Area Head Fi meet a couple years ago. Mike Moffat saw me wearing one of the old I'm a Bottlehead t shirts and said "I think we're gonna have t shirts made that say I'm a Schiithead"

 

[Grainger49]

I always wanted to buy a Schiit just so I could write a review.

~  Best Schitt in years!

~ I can't believe the sounds coming out of my Schitt this morning!

Kind'a the same reason I bought a bottle of "Shineola".

 

[John EH]

Yesterday my Raspberry Pi system at work took a crap.  We have an unstable network repeater which crashes daily and every time they restart it I lose the IP address of the Pi which means I have to hard reboot it.  It is not a matter of if but rather when your file system will corrupt when you do that. 

Anyway to the point.  I brought it home yesterday and smart guy that I am I redid squeezeplug and then saved the disk image and made a second card.  Next time it happens I'll just plug in a new card then take the corrupt one home and re-image it.

Ok now to the point.  Had the Work Pi next to my home system Pi.  Work Pi had a Nuforce UDAC2 and home Pi has the JDS Labs ODAC.  Ran them side by side into the same preamp and listened to a song on one and then the other.

Results. 

No contest.  ODAC 100x's better sounding to my ears.  UDAC has a touch of digital harshness.

HOWEVER,

UDAC sounds better on my SET Paramours than ODAC.  Go figure.

It's all good.  All fun.

Can't wait to get my Crack assembled and start playing with headphones.

John

 

[earwaxxer]

Since we are on DAC's and today is Friday, and I got a 'new' impulse buy DAC in the mail today from Parts Express, I will share the preliminary 'data' on this little puppy.

Here is the link so you can follow along at home...
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=230-120

I'm fucking flat giggling about this thing! I bought it, like I said, on a whim. The idea was to provide a "back end" 24/192 DAC for my subwoofer, because I have been realizing that 24/192 does in fact sound mucho better than 24/96, at least in terms of JRiver software etc. I started with it on the back end, and it doesnt quite have the drive that my MSB Link DAC lll has for bass. Thats acceptable. The thing is tiny, and it runs off of 5V USB/converter.

Then I popped it in the "front end" in place of my reference Schiit (it is fun using that word - smart marketing!) It was pretty fucking all right. Listening to Traffic "Fellin Alright". Ya, it sounds good. First impression is a bit 'rolled off' but great size and stage. Very surprising. I would have expected thing, anemic sound, kind of mid-fi.

Anyway - the take away is - just buy one of these. Have it on hand when you want to use the toslink from your TV or whatever. Dont get me wrong. The Schiit is back where it belongs. Which is always good! But now I can listen to 24/192 for practically nothing and get bass also.

 

[Grainger49]

Eric,

Does the Wall Wart come with it?  Could be an upgrade to build a better supply for it.

You will probably get me to buy this and play with it. 

 

[earwaxxer]

Hey Granger - Yep, its just one of those iphone type plugs that has a USB on the end of it. This little thing makes you realize how far the electronics have come in the last 5 years. Unreal.

 

[hopeful]

Eric,

Does the Wall Wart come with it?  Could be an upgrade to build a better supply for it.

You will probably get me to buy this and play with it. 

There's an interesting thread on this topic over in the diy forum on changstar you might want to check out Grainger: http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,383.0.html

Fwiw - I'm quite impressed by the odac, which I'm currently using in my bedside setup.  A word of warning: the odac (or mine at least) is very susceptible to RFI/EMI, and requires a usb cable with a ferrite bead (jds ships it with one from monoprice).  I initially plugged it in with a more expensive cable I had lying around, and it sounded like absolute garbage.  I thought I had received a lemon but then tried the stock cable.  That did the trick.  Overall, an excellent option, imo, for those on a tight budget.  I'd rank it about on par with my lower end arcam cdp but not quite the equal of the keces 131 dac that I generally use with my crack/hd800 rig.

I also built an o2 just for the fun of it, and PB is correct that the negative feedback has a significant impact on the sound, notwithstanding the otherwise impressive measurements.  Having clipped a couple of resisters to reduce the gain to 1x (which helps to avoid the O2's known clipping issues), it is still a marked improvement on the output from my ipad4 (which already measures better than any other tablet out there).  That said, to my ears, the o2 doesn't even begin to approach the experience of listening to my crack. 

 

[John EH]

I was going to get an O2 and build the ODAC in but I opted to go the Crack route as well.  I tell you I'm big time impressed with the ODAC and concur with your statements on the ferrite cable.  I found a short 6" ferrite cable in my travels around Japan and installed that.  A regular USB cable indeed sounds like crap.

ODAC also sounds weird for a day or two or at least mine did.  I keep thinking I'm going to buy a proper high dollar designer DAC and I keep going to the store in Hiroshima to listen to them and none of them sound any better or different to me much than the Nuforce or ODAC.  Last time I went down to Hiro I slipped the ODAC in my pocket and slipped it in the circuit and the Cambridge Audio DAC Magic Plus does NOT sound better to my ears than that. 

I'm just sticking with what I've got.  I stream Pandora and MOG through a Raspberry Pi with inexpensive DAC's such as ODAC, UDAC2SE, and HiFiMeDIY Sabre USB DAC.  I'm totally content.  Only thing that could get me to change would be the Bottlehead DAC which I'll undoubtedly get when they make it available.

John

 

[Grainger49]

I just ordered the ODAC.  Wrong!  I ordered the DAC from Parts Express.  You guys should have been suspicious of me spending that cash for a toy.

Now I need to cobble together a power supply and order the power supply adapter to use it with.

I will start with this between my Proceed PCD (original) and my Foreplay.  Since my computer (desktop) is about 40 feet away, has nothing on it but MP3 files for background music on it, I won't be trying to use it.  Although, I do have one album of high res files I have never heard.  Hmmm. 

Edit: I have a 5V 1F caps I could add to the supply. 

 

[2wo]

I have an ODAC and been running it off USB power for now. I was thinking about making my own USB cable with separate runs for signal and outboard power.

Granger, what is the adapter that you mention...John

 

[Grainger49]

John,

The link is buried in previous posts and links:

http://www.streakwave.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=5VUSB&eq=&Tp=

I hope this works.  It says you can "inject" a regulated 5V supply.  We will see.  I wonder if it messes with the USB power supply as one poster asks.  A couple of diodes can fix that.  Well, maybe just one?