DAC Shootout - Tons of Fun
 

AA Friends - last night we had a fun gathering at my place and we did a little informal DAC shootout. I will try and post some pictures later, but wanted to get a quick write-up to share.



The contenders were:

PS Audio Directstream DAC (with Bridge II Card) (MSRP $6900 / $3500 "street price" used)

Mcintosh MDA-1000 (MSRP $8000)

dCS Debussy ($11,000 MSRP / $4500 "Street Price" used)

Schiit Yggy Less Is More ($2,200 MSRP / $2000 "Street Price" used

Lumin T2 ($4,500 MSRP)



(I had an AMR DP-777SE that was delivered today, so it didn't "make it" and I just ordered a Lampizator Baltic-3 DAC, which should be here tomorrow. I'll compare these to the "winner(s)" later this week or so)



The audience was a handful of like minded audiophiles, which is always a good time. We all had different tastes, so it was cool to see all of the reactions.



One attendee entered the shootout skeptical that there would be much in the way of differences between DACs. My system is pretty revealing, so that myth was dispelled pretty quickly.



Every single DAC was a completely different presentation.



Our music was streamed through Qobuz.



Playlist was sampled from the following tracks:



Day One - Carly Pearce (female vocal that needs to be "just right")

O Heart Bereaved and Lonely - Leigh Nash (awesome bass on this song)

Move on Up (2019 Remaster) - Curtis Mayfield (This track can easily come off bright, so a good comparison)

The Way You Look Tonight - Frank Sinatra

Love - Michael Buble'

Better Together - Jack Johnson

Poker Face - Lady Gaga

Fur Elise - Cyrus Chestnut / A Charlie Brown Christmas

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Sara Bareilles (Live at the variety playhouse)

Sista - Rachelle Ferrell (not my jam, but awesome bass line)

Sexy Plexi - Jack Johnson

The Sound of Silence - Disturbed

Caterpillar - The Colorist & Emiliana Torrini (fantastic "noises")

Computer Love - Kraftwerk (3-D The Catalogue) this has a very 3-d panning sound, which is way cool

Death Row- Chris Stapleton

Love is a Verb - John Mayer

Musical Genocide - Gregory Porter

Beautiful Girl - Sara Bareilles (fantastic acoustic guitar and female vocal)

Hotel California - Eagles

Bubbles - Yosi Horikawa (fantastic imaging track)





With a diverse setlist, we went on to listening.

DAC Shootout - Tons of Fun
 

Results:

The rankings were pretty unanimous. In order of favorite to worst were the following:

(1) dCS Debussy
(2/3 - tie) PS Audio / MDA-1000 (These two were more evenly matched. The MDA has a better soundstage, and is very smooth. The PS Audio is pretty "easy" to listen to. It was also pretty homogenized in sound, where there wasn't a lot of variation between songs. Depending on the day, the rankings between these two could go either way)
(4) Schiit Yggy LIM. On it's own, this is a pretty good DAC. It wasn't until we compared it with the other sounds that the whole group wanted to move on pretty quickly from this sound. Bear in mind, that this could be system dependent, and I've previously heard pretty good things from the Yggy in the past
(5) Lumin T2 - Pass. As a DAC it was dull, flat, and didn't survive 5 minutes in the shootout.

To Be Continued ----as the AMR and Lampi go against the dCS!

*side note, the dCS is VERY detailed. On some tracks that was a problem as poor recordings can come off bright. Using the Lumin as a streamer seemed to calm down the dCS, making it sound pretty darn good.

https://www.audioaficionado.org/atta...0&d=1643412427

Attachment 66580

Attachment 66581Attachment 66582

“Naked” AMR -showing off its upgraded Tri-Core Ebony Capacitors.

Impressions on the AMR and Lampi coming soon-

My dCS Rossini arrived today! I’ll enjoy it for a while and decide if I want to upgrade it to Apex down the road. Clock will be before that.

Enjoy.

This is pretty cool stuff… can’t wait for the other competitors to enter the fray!

Mitch

Jason… you missed one. :twisted:

http://www.fi-play.com/wp-content/up...b601757817.jpg

:D

The Denafrips Terminator(s) should have been a great addition to the list.

Looking forward the rest of the results.