As much you love your AN DAC, it appears your bottleneck is AN DAC and USB converter not Zen 3. Adding Phoenix clock or Upgrading to Statement or EVO will not yield full benefits of their design if your DAC is limited to 16/44. If you want to venture into high resolution streaming or DSD downloads, get a DAC that can handle high resolution bits before you upgrade from Zen 3.
A streamer core job is to pass on digital bits natively to a DAC. Your DAC does the heavy lifting especially if you’re using USB protocol to transmit bits. IME, not all streamers and DAC created equal, a high quality DAC and Streamer works collectively in rendering qualitative benefits of a recording regardless of file resolution.
As you probably know, not every recording is going to sound better just because it’s high resolution, lot of it has to do with original master source of the file. I have heard and own many outstanding files in 16/44 and all the way upto DSD256.
Bottom line, ensure you have an audio system comprises of components that can allow you to appreciate the differences between low to high resolution files rather than focusing on which components will do better with low or high resolution files.
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Thanks for your thoughtful reply. My digital sounds very good to my ears so I need to keep the AN DAC. It brought my digital so much closer to the musical enjoyment of vinyl. That in the addition of a six pack of REL subwoofers. I actually had a friend bring a Phoenix clock over and I heard it in my system with my Zen 3. It made a material difference that I really liked. So my plan was to buy the clock. But then when I add the clock and the cable and another power cord, it's not that much different money to just sell the Zen 3 and buy an Evo aeon or for a couple thousand more get an innuos statement. Given the improvement I heard with the clock, I'm sure the other improvements would yield some benefit. And my digital is sounding so close in terms of musical enjoyment to the analog now, that I may be selling my analog rig for now and using the money to upgrade.
So it sounds like you're saying that there are some benefits that would be better realized with a dac that can handle higher sampling rates. Given the above that I've said, does anyone think the Evo or the NUS are necessarily better for 16/44? Or is that not really going to be a factor in my decision? I'm going to be buying used so I probably won't get a chance to audition.
Thanks
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I use an Auralic Aries G1 into an older AN Dac-3 Signature using a Jorma digital spdif RCA cable. I have the Aries set to output Flac 16/44.1 only and it works great and sounds great.
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Check out the Steve Hoffman Audio Note thread. Lots of recommendations for streamers to use with AN Dacs. I think Grimm has been used as well as Aurender.
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Thanks dsockel. Yeah it's funny I was just reading about the Grimm mu1 last night. Did optimizes for SPDIF and aes, so that's a good fit for the audio note and put as well.
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Like @jond, I have an auralic (an older Pagoda-style Femto), and it pairs very well with an Audio Note 2.1X Sig. DAC, via AES/EBU. Couldn't be happier with the sound.
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May I suggest trying DAC that is capable of high resolution and yet have tube part? Lampizator perhaps or Audio Research?
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Appreciate the suggestion but I would not change DACs. The Audio Note sounds so much closer to real than most digital I have heard. Different design approach entirely than high-res design approach. Like most things in this hobby though, well executed components can all sound great, even if their design approach is completely different. Never ceases to amaze me. Witness dynamic vs planar speakers or set vs solid state amps. There are great examples of all of them and terrible examples of many of them.
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@montaldo,
Respect your decision to not replace AN DAC. Look into MU1 or Aurender N200. With N200, connect to your DAC via Coax for best possible outcome.
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Maybe someone should take ANK 5.1 kit but put DSD DAC board in it… Business opportunity… sell assembled with newer chipset
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Ha! If Peter Qvordrup were dead he'd be rolling in his grave! Audio Note builds their dacs very intentionally to avoid all that! Read up on their design philosophy ... It's pretty interesting. And I for one would never argue with the incredible result. Doing what you suggest I imagine would ruin the sound ;)
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Avoid what? They used the best chip available at the time. It does have particular sonic signature. I'd say modern AKM with Velvet Sound would be a good replacement. It is same technology, not Delta-Sigma as ESS. The problem is to find AKM board with good quality parts and not op amps or cheap caps.
It would be an interesting experiment for someone handy with electronics to feed ANK analog part with signal from decent AKM DAC like RME, taking signal before RME filters, just raw DAC output.
I am handy, maybe some day I will take on this...
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OP - keep in mind, when you use SPDIF input on your dac, the better the clock is in your transport the better the sound quality. Look for a streamer that’s optimized for SPDIF with OCXO clock. A used Aurender N10 or N20 will be a good match.
Alternative is to buy a high quality reclocker with OCXO clock to reclock USB to SPDIF.
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Yes audphile1, I had been thinking about adding a clock to my current Innuous Zen. And I believe the Grimm mu-1 has a very sophisticated clock and is optimized for spdif output. So I'm definitely heading that direction one way or another. I don't know much about aurender but I'm going to read up on them.
Thanks
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Streamer: Aavik S-180 ($7000)
At a later date, i.e., if you think there may be a better dac out there...get the
DAC: Aavik D-180 ( $7000)
It will sound way more 'real' and give you everything in the music that the Audionote dac robbed all these years.
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You should read this thread from the last few days. Significant differences of opinion regarding the efficacy of spending much on streamers:
streamer thread
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btw, if not mistaken, the only purpose for reclocking is to remove jitter. So if you start with a low jitter streamer, not clear to me what the purpose of a separate reclocker would be.
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Hello Audiogoners!
Not trying to hijack the discussion, but since the GRIMM AUDIO MU1 was mentioned, just wanted to share some pretty cool facts about the MU1 combined with Audio Note DACs or other DACs with the AD1865 chip (ie. the new Linear Tube Audio AERO DAC).
1. The MU1 can convert the bit depth to 16, 18, 20 and 24 bits...so an 18 bit depth can be selected for these DACs, as it the maximum they can support.
2. It can convert hi-res files above 96kHz (again maximum of the 1865 chip) to 96kHz or below, so your hi-res PCM or DSD files can be played.
3. Has a built in remote control volume...which an Audio Note system does not have (except for a Cobra integrated). I get that purists may not want to use this feature all the time, but it is completely seamless and EASY to disable on the fly, as well as being VERY convenient.
4. Has Roon Server (aka Roon Core in the past) plus optional local storage for your music all in one box...again convenient.
Note - Audio Archon is an authorized GRIMM AUDIO dealer located in the Chicago area.
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Audioarchon: Thanks for that! This is part of what I was wondering.
Is much of the Grimm magic lost when the upsampling is limited to what my AN UK DAC4 can deal with? That was another question I have.
I am in St. Louis, so not far away.
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@montaldo - The Grimm magic is not lost! ;o)
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