@dbb what’s your final take on the 006 ? I have been using the 005 for sometime now and wanted to upgrade to 006. I read the 006 has more resolution than 005 which is fine but I worry of tipping the scale to the brighter side. Being a ds dac, the 005 still has a lot of musicality. How do you grade the musical aspect of 006 as compared to 005 ?
@sns keep the reports coming after you burn in the dac significantly, at least 300 hrs...the Mundrof Mlytic and Duelund (maybe ? or Jupiter ?) in 006 takes a long long time to burn-in.
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I have looked and can’t find if the clocks in the DAC are oven controlled?
Don’t think so. They are excellent femto clocks though. oven control doesn’t necessarily relate to better sound. they are better for keeping the jitter low over longer duration of time which is not a necessity for audio performance. what matters more is the phase noise @10hz for audio.
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@dbb thanks for the update. keep them coming. Btw, did Jinbo suggest which silver power cord he prefers in Musetec ?
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@dbb thanks for your feedback. It looks like the 006 is revealing weakness in rest of your system. This is not the fault of the DAC and more to do with the system matching. Sometimes even a slight extra resolution can throw an offball curve. You might want to take a look at the source you are using and experiment with it. Almost all resolving DACs needs a better source to get the best out of it and if you are steaming than optimizing the network is paramount.
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I have an Innuos Phoenix USB decrapifier reclocker, I wonder if these type of devices have a positive effect on sound quality or do they have a minimal effect if any
The 006 has a galvanic high speed usb isolator chip and the whole purpose of it is to make the usb input agnostic of the source. However, in reality, the better the source, the better the sound. Many say that I2S sounds better when they introduce a DDC in between but the fact is they have a poor/weak USB source. In my case with 005, a DDC deteriorates the sound since my source’s usb implementation is a lot better. There is no black and white answer to your question since, unlike analog, there are too many variables (power supply, noise, jitter, network) in digital that can affect the sound. Since you already have the Phoenix USB, try with and without and let your ears decide which sounds better.
On a separate note, the Phoenix USB chip is pretty ordinary and nothing fancy, it’s the power supply that makes it better than many, if not all, music server’s USB output.
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@sns good feedback so far on what seems atypical of the burning process. keep us updated. I am still not sure if I want to upgrade to 006 - so many DACs available at this price range. On one side I kept thinking of trying a non-Sabre DAC - AKM, R2R, Fpga, Hybrids, but then the Musetec 005 also sounds very musical in my setup. Not sure what to do - a problem with too many choices :-)
@melm nice summarizing all the types of DDCs.
There is one DDC that called my attention - its a Audiobyte Super Hub. Its expensive compared to others but I have heard good things about it.
https://www.audiobyte.net/products/superhub
With my experience with digital and a lot of DIY along the way, it extremely difficult to pick a winner. There are so many factors with digital that affects the sound, it is hard to say in advance what will work in one’s system. One really got to try it out. However, one thing that I can say confidently and which has worked in every situation is the better and more stable a power supply, the better the sound in digital.
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@aw118 pm me or look at usaudiomart ads if you are looking for a used 005.
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how do you sync the 006 to the Gaia clock?
I believe Gaia is connected to 006 over i2s which has clock signals as part of the spec. However, its upto the receiver to take it or leave it. Many DAC's don't use the incoming clocks over i2s (one good example is PS Audio DirectStream) as most of them are riddled with jitter. I am not sure what 006 implements. If 006 sounds better over i2s than usb, it could be the i2s data itself, it could be a better clock signal or it could be a combination of both. If you notice a better timing and rhythm, it likely the clocks are at play.
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Someone over at the other forum has compared PF I2S (w/ Ultra PF ocxo) with their USB counterpart (PF & JCAT) a while back and found they are at par - they sound different but none is better than the other. They both are of such high quality that it’s a matter of taste at this point. This tells that I2S is not always the superior input for DACs regardless of implementation. Some DACs will sound better over I2S, others not so much.
IMO, two things are needed to optimize USB from the server/streamer side - first is an excellent power supply and the secondly a good quality clock, preferably a good quality ocxo. Another thing that is often overlooked is the network side of things, like network interface, Copper vs Fiber Optics, downstream switches, etc. These play a major role in contributing to the SQ. Moreover, if you have a DIY server, the power supply to the server is important, so are the choice of dram module, low latency drive, OS optimization all contributes. If these things are not in order, the 2nd best solution is a well implemented DDC, like Denafrips Gaia or the Audio-gd DI-25HE.
Recently PF has introduced an Ultra USB Bridge (with in-built Ultra ocxo) that comes with a substantial hefty price tag (over $3k). Someone who tried it said it sounds substantially better. Well, at that price I won’t be trying it myself but I do plan to modify my JCAT XE to feed a good quality ocxo or get the JCAT ocxo board which is also a bit expensive for what it does but it has two 20Mhz outputs - so if you are using both USB and Network card from JCAT, then it might be beneficial. I use fiber out straight away from my server and hence I can’t reuse the 2nd clock as it.
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@sns looks like you have put a lot of effort in your digital frontend. Bravo!
I would like to know how critical are upstream components to Gaia. I suspect better the upstream, the better Gaia performs. Would it be possible to use a laptop or some generic computer/pc connected to the Gaia and give us some feedback when you get a chance ?
I am finding that the USB sounds better and better as you optimize more and more on the networking side of things. My very recent mods has been to modify the Fiber network card with an aftermarket ocxo clock and the audio quality went up couple of notches without touching anything on the usb side. It’s still burning in but I am already hearing the benefits - their is a sense of tempo, timing, calmness, relaxed sound. My next mod will to do something similar on the switch side and maybe stack two of them together. I have a complete separate network for audio which has also helped to reduce home traffic polluting the audio network and hence improving SQ in the way.
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I’d suggest it silly to spend $1800 on ddc with laptop
The whole selling point of DDC is exactly that. You don’t need to spend on a better source and cheap laptop will work since the DDC will be shielding the nastiness and reclocking the signal anyway. What I wanted to find out is how much Gaia can shield from the upstream. I don’t think it’s 100% capable but wanted a confirmation. Anyway, I would think spending $1800 on a better source is more beneficial even though it doesn’t have i2s out. This is why we don’t see folks using or benefiting from DDC from better source, like PF Streamer, Taiko Extreme, Innous Statement.
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sns @debjit_g Denafrips is going thru upgrading gear have they said that they are going to upgrade the GAIA or is it at a level that their is not much left to upgrade?
I have not heard they said about upgrading Gaia. In fact they have also not advertised any upgrades to Pontus to the 15th Gen until it was released. There is always room for improvements in any components - even if you are not changing design, just upgrading internal parts could provide a very noticeable change.
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@sns i am glad that I was able to get out of the Copper ethernet and savings for the card as well as an expensive Ethernet cable. I still have the jcat xe (non-Evo) version lying around. I was thinking of upgrading the jcat usb xe to the Evo version but for the price, I might experiment with newer motherboards that might do similar trick. Will see one way or the other. Still not decided if I want to experiment with a good ddc like Gaia though I tried several cheaper ones earlier and did not like the result. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a way to audition it - a US tour of the Gaia will be much appreciated from Denafrips and their US distributor :-)
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Just curious, why does the amount of capacitance matter in a DAC ?
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IMO, it would depends on power consumption. I do not think the numbers are that critical for a DAC as other power hungry electronics, like an amp or a music server doing upsampling duties. On the contrary, there is point for most low power consumption devices, where adding more caps becomes redundant. It’s more important that a power supply has low ripple noise, low impedance and the caps has low esr. Given what Musetec designer have achieved with 005 (I don’t have the 006), I am pretty certain that the designer has this part squared out correctly. So if you don’t see a gazillion of caps, like Denafrips DAC, you can be rest assured there is no shortage of it either.
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