i was considering an asus xonar stx until i saw this little thing. does anyone know how does this compare with an stx? i'm guessing that stx win by miles but i just buy this one for my portable and current use. planning to pair it with an ad700 in the near future.

This post has been edited by Fable: Oct 13 2010, 01:08 AM

If AD700 is hard to drive, you will need an amp... This thing doesn't have much power to drive cans, if you look at the reviews.

i think it should be able to work well with the AD700 without an amp. the AD series from audio technica is easy to drive. im using an AD500 myself. anyway, will let u guys know how will it work my AD500 as soon as i got the item.

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Added on October 18, 2010, 3:23 pmFinally got the item. doesnt have any problems driving my AD500. in fact it sounds a lot louder now. 10% volume with the DAC is equivalent to 20% without DAC. Comfortable listening volume is anywhere between 4 to 16% volume.

This post has been edited by danny_sp15: Oct 18 2010, 03:23 PM

bro, i will get this DAC by next week and i will do comparison with my Asus Xonar Essence STX...

This post has been edited by xEDynamics: Oct 21 2010, 10:18 PM

I am getting this DAC after my purchase of an amp soon. Hope it's as good as what you people say. But then again, at the price the seller is selling, it's a steal.
I have a friend who's into electronics, and I'll bet that he will be buying this thing as well, purely for research purposes.

Review saying this thing better than asus xonar U2, xonar U2 better than Creative X-Fi go. What do you think?

looking forward to it bro .

General comparison between this DAC and GoVibe DAC:

GoVibe: Fast, accurate, warm and smooth, without much alteration to original sound quality.

PCM2704: Slower, accurate, significant body, slow and muddy on fast songs.

Overall, the PCM lacks the speed but makes up a lot with the body which is good for instrumental as well as slow songs. The body somehow will make it sounds really full and better than GoVibe.

But, the speed on GoVibe makes it better for fast rock and metallic sound.

Summary:

PCM2704 - For slow song with instruments, but overall within my acceptable limit of slowness.

GoVibe - Fast pace song and more suitable for a lot of genre.

update...
without comparing..
i did not find it slow.
in fact quite good.

i would think burnin have some effects to improve the speed.. xD

Just curious. I'm not familiar with audiophile lingo as of yet, but does slow means that the music can become cluttered, with little separation between sounds in the music, as the music gets more complex with more sound and faster tempo?

Yeah, I'm curious about that too.

im not using audiophile lingo.
im just using a verb.

and u pretty much got the idea already.
it's just that the DAC is very detailed, that the limiitation becomes obvious. by comparison to normal soundcard, speed is about the same.
burnin also cures the problem, so it's probably the capacitors are new, so takes time to saturate and works.

again, as i mentioned earlier so many times..
I AM JUST BEING PICKY... since my benchmark for DAC is the lavry DA-11, which cost 60 times more expensive.

Owh. I just want to learn how to describe things, to make it easier for me to understand reviews and writing my own. Most of the time I can't find the right word to describe what I'm hearing.

This post has been edited by tunertoobe: Oct 23 2010, 10:15 PM

any one use PCM2704 to drive Aego M?

No wonder. Just hope that this DAC could drive my subwoofer better then inboard sc which need more bass.

if ur looking for bottom end,
this dac delivers very good weight and body on the bass.

dun have to worry about the bass, cos this dac managed to improve the bass of my AD500 (the AD series is known for the excellent mids and soundstage, at the expense of sacrifing the bass). im not sure what audiophile term should i use to describe it, but it just sounds better, more pronounced, giving u the feel of the bass that u're looking for in a song, without being too punchy or causing distortions. hope im saying it right... but in my opinion, the way it improves the lower spectrum feels somehow more suitable for slow songs such as ballads, slow rock, certain types of jazz. probably not best for techno and trance. but i might be wrong, im really a noob here... do forgive me if im wrong...

i already said it, 2 things.
body and weight.
body is the fullness of the sound. it defines the size of the sound, not how loud the sound is. loudness and volume are totally different than body.
weight will be more to the feel of the sound when you hear it.. it feels and heard as heavy. light sound will feel and heard as light. when you hear heavy object fall to the ground, and light object fall to the groud, there will be difference in sound. the heavy ones will sound weightier.
both can be presented even on a very low volume.

the problem with body is, usually having more body and weight will reduce the speed of the sound.
a similar reference will be momentum. large and heavy object takes time to stop moving.
here, the sound takes time to dissapear. hence, slow.
what happens, is the decay will overlap with the next sound, causing distortion. this can be heard as muffled or sounds that are louder.

this is usually a tradeoff on cheap dacs that needs to be accepted. how they works?

if u want deep soundstage, you need to sacrifice depth, sounds feel compressed.
if u want wide soundstage, you need to stretch the sound width, sounds became unclear and smeared.
if u want separation, you need to thin out the sound, so that the separation is more obvious.
if u want speed, you need to sacrifice the sound body.

a very good DAC can do both weight and speed, body and separation, width and depth, without distorting the original sound. it has better control..
most dac usually does width and separation, therefore, smearing the sound, and thin it back. but you lose body and weight. speed naturally comes in with loss of body and weight.
this dac does the total opposite, improve body and separation, but losing the speed.

however, a good sound body is more pleasing and natural compared to thin sounding. if not playing fast tracks (techno, trance) this dac is superior in every way. on electronica, some of them are not so fast, a good body will be better. classical needs a balance of both, so preference is here.

also keep in mind, most mp3 already chopped down a 1411kbps cd audio to a 128-320kbps, you already lost at least 1/5th of the details, or in other words, smeared the details out.
thats why i said, most people wont notice.

As expected from a pro! Thanks for the thorough explanation!
there sure are a lot of things that i still need to learn from the audiophile world... umm, would u mind commenting on the mids and the highs with this DAC? is it improved as much as the lower frequencies? cos i find that they're somewhat muffled...

This post has been edited by danny_sp15: Oct 24 2010, 02:57 AM

I'm into slow song, something like musical and ballad genre and sometimes pop. Hope that my bass could show its performance better with this DAC.

lol, abit confusing since I'm new to these things. I don't really understand the bolded part. Mind to explain in much simple phrase?