Finally in da house. First attempt just could not get it to lock with the Lector. Found out it is not the Lector or EE. When the sunfire sub is connected the lock goes bye bye. :duh. Tried cheater plugs, swithching outlets and so on , no luck.
Ok so hooked it up using a Sony 755 CDP [ cheapie] as transport and :drool: it sounded really good. Digital cable used was a Straightwire silver. Brought the wifedown for a listen. We both agree when we hooked the Lector up cold the EE was better. Was breaking in a new homemade powercord on the Lector, so out it went and the Omega Mikro back in. Later on about an hour later the difference was not so evident. A close call. The soundstage of the EE was further back then the Lector. Bass was better tighter with the EE. Mids and top by the Lector were more focused and fuller than the EE. However when the phase switch was engaged with the EE the difference between in and out of phase was easily discerned. A feature ALL dacs should have. Priceless.
Sibilants were handled very smoothly by the EE. Especially when phase was correct. Live recordings were well LIVE with the EE. A tad more presence than the Lector.
Overall after several hours of comparisons the lector won out by a smidgen. I just never took any of the inexpensive DACs seriously. Until Wayne did his magic on this unit and it went on tour. Glad I did, live and learn.
This EE DAC is KABOOM for the buck period end of story. Try one we feel you will be greatly surprised with the result. The level one mod is $800 plus the cost of the DAC.
There was a lock problem at the g2g too, right?
Quote from: richidoo on February 04, 2011, 01:45:12 PM
There was a lock problem at the g2g too, right?
Yes. We believe it is a grouding issue of some sort, just not sure.
charles
Quote from: richidoo on February 04, 2011, 01:45:12 PM
There was a lock problem at the g2g too, right?
We had a problem getting things to lock with Jim's digital cable. Switched out to the dig cable that Shek brought with the EE and things locked OK. Although it may well have been pilot error as when thing finally did start to lock it happened after ewe turned off the entire digital chain and booted it from scratch with the new cables already in place. Unfortunately it was getting late (Jim lives in an apartment, so we had a hard stop for playing music) so we didn't have time to go back to the cable that was giving us trouble and try it with the new boot sequence, so while we had some ideas, we couldn't really narrow down the exact cause of the lock problems.
I have to agree with Rollo about the phase switch. I have never really been a big proponent of absolute phase differences but on this unit the change when you flip the phase switch is very noticeable. I had a phase switch on my Audio Alchemy gear, but I was never really impressed by what it did. Which leads me to one of two possibilities. Either A) the SQ of the AA gear was such that you could not appreciate the phase change, or B) the switch was broken and nothing ever really changed. Don't know, don't care, but the change in this EE unit was not subtle.
Maybe a transformer would help with the lock, by raising the voltage. All modern receiver chips have input from .5 to 5V to accommodate SPDIF and AES/EBU signals with one chip. If the voltage drops across two temporary connections it might lower the signal voltage enough to prevent lock, and be fixed when excellent connections are made.
Black Sand Audio sent us a W4S DAC2 for my last G2G, it sounded OK, but not as good as we expected. Then after I shipped it back to John he saw that the phase switch was reversed from the factory. I never even looked for a phase switch, and never noticed it on the back panel. In the heat of the comparisons none of us thought to check for that since it is rarely included feature on DACs. John said that flipping it can make a big difference.
The modded EE DAC is heading down the Atlanta after it leaves NYC.
Rich,
Would you or Carl like to have it make a guest appearance in your area?
BTW, there is an impedance matching transformer on the XLR input.
Cheers,
Wayne
Hi Wayne! Thanks for the offer, but I have two Twisted Pear ESS9018 kits already so I'm aiming the money gun at speakers at the moment. I did hear the EE DAC in stock form at Carl's a few months back. I liked the SS output best, and as usual nobody else agreed.... :D
Yesterday I delivered the EE DAC to Paul of Karlan Cables. Spent some time listening to his system. The new Marten speakers with that Accuton tweeter sounded full and detailed. Paul put on some Baltic world music which was as treat. great stuff, lively and makes ya dance.
Paul's system fitted with his cable creations and power conditioners was quite impressive. We did not do any comparisons, changes, nada. just enjoyed the music. great bass, dead quite background and dynamic as well. A tough combo to acheive, usually thinning appears when there is abundant detail, not ion this case. BTW the room is just perfect for audio. A great way to analise his works.
We did not listen to the EE DAC as he wanted to wait untill tonight to do so. :roll: :lol:
charles
Glad to hear the Martens are working out as intended.
Charles,
Thanks for the kind comments. This sorta leads to this question,
'What physical isolation devices have been a good match for the EE dac?'
The reason I ask, and the reason I didn't make any changes is that I'd just discovered that 4 'unhappy balls' [nosorex] under my modded Zhaolu dac brought back much of the scale and depth that had missing since giving up my Alon IVs of the last 20+ years, for the better resolving, thoroughly modern Marten Miles IIs.[insert anectdotal comment like 'unasked, my wife asked me about the change for the better she heard from the kitchen']
I've really not had time to even try different isolation under my own slightly modded EE dac. So over the weekend I'll try a little slap and tickle to try and find (if such exists) optimal applications of various doodads on the EE dac.
Since getting the all Accuton carborundum cone driver Martens, the increased resolution has shown my own efforts at isolation/damping have been less than ideal, and I never really appreciated its importance.
Actually, it was worse than Baltic music, it was Balkan music. Balkan Beat Box to be specific.
Thanks,
Paul
Brain fart Balkan it is. :duh. thanks again for the good time. Footers you say. I used sound fusion footers as well as Vibrapods and brass cones. the brass highlighted the topend the Sound fusion were calming and the Vibrapods took the cake, go figure.
From our experience with DACs isolation from below rather than draining of resonance seems to be the ticket. Same for transports. Isolation baby. Maybe that's why the unhappy balls are so affective.
charles
I would like to hear your modified version, Wayne. :drool:
And of course, there should be a G2G organized around it.. I just need to figure out how. We have a baby due in May and I'm in school many weekends... I will noodle and figure something out... I'd love to hear it... and have a hifi party! :)
-C
Quote from: Wayne1 on February 09, 2011, 12:04:23 PM
The modded EE DAC is heading down the Atlanta after it leaves NYC.
Rich,
Would you or Carl like to have it make a guest appearance in your area?
BTW, there is an impedance matching transformer on the XLR input.
Cheers,
Wayne