Little Giant NOS DAC mini review
I bought this dac a few months ago from Aliexpress. It is a 47 Labs clone with a Philips TD1387 chip in non-oversampling mode.
It also employs a variant of the Pass output buffer, and utilizes a sole S/PDIF coaxial input.
When using this dac with my computer, differing levels of digital distortion were clearly present, with the best digital files having the least. The results were good to terrible.
But when I use my Carver MV5 cd player as a transport, I get much different and improved results.
Not only is the distortion reduced to a tolerable level, the sound is warmer and smoother, with a good soundstage and imaging.
I would also say that it is closer to analog than my old Micromega Stage 3, while providing more air and apparent resolution.
In absolute terms, digital is not, and cannot be truly accurate to the original performance in its present form.
But, an astute listener can thru years of listening experience gain the knowlege and ability to fairly accurately judge whether or not a particular component is lossy, colored or inaccurate to the format source in general. |
This is what you say now. But earlier you said:
Original performance? Original signal? This beckons a reference! The BS meter is starting to take off. |
OP, Just as an encouraging comment about sound quality. As one rises up the ladder in digital, or analog for that mater, audio reproduction the sound quality improves enormously. To the point it was inconceivable only ten and twenty years ago. For instance, I have a high end turntable and phonostage that produces sound unattainable a few decades ago, and more impressively, my streamer and CD player produce sound quality at that same level. So, the defects go away with increasing better equipment. You can see my systems under my UserID. None of this may not be worth it to you, but the problems with sound reproduction you have experienced can definitely be ameliorated. |
Sorry, but unless you were the recording engineer who was there for the recording process there’s just no way you could ever know this. What you are talking about is your own “perception” of what “you think” the original performance sounded like. And, using a computer as a source whether through streaming or playing your own downloaded music is severely compromised and in no way should be used as a yardstick to judge digital sound. If you listen to @ghdprentice above you should know his streaming setup now surpasses his $45k analog setup, so maybe — just maybe — you have some things to learn here. Just sayin’. |
