Anyone finished burning in their TC-7520 yet?

[StanleyB]

Anything to report that might be of interest?

I had one customer pass by with his K701 headphones. He said he never heard them sound so loud and with so much detail in the bass. But I knew that already. I got a set of K701 myself.

Stan

[Clive]

Anything to report that might be of interest?

I had one customer pass by with his K701 headphones. He said he never heard them sound so loud and with so much detail in the bass. But I knew that already. I got a set of K701 myself.

Stan

Mine's been running about 20 hours so far. I had a listen last night when it had around 10 hours. Running from PC and a Meridian 588 (as a transport) it was definitely an improvement on the DAC in the Meridian 588 - this is a £2k player from just a few years ago. Two areas stood out for me:
- Bass, deep, tight and detailed
- Soundstage between the speakers - there's much more of it.

Overall it sounds more like playing records than CD. I'll listen some more over the weekend.

[tizer2000uk]

Got mine this morning and these are my thoughts thus far:

Compared to the 7510 6/4 I purchased about a month ago, the sound has far more 'meat', a much tighter bottom end and more detail coming through, one tune in particular has a very discrete backing chorus line in the mix that on lesser systems makes it hard to concentrate on, with the 7520 and SR80's I found myself being able to 'look' at the chorus line in more detail than I have been able to previously, so much more in fact that I found myself hearing the main chorus as the backing track if that makes any sense. The 7510 has a slightly thinner sound in direct comparisons I have performed this evening, each instrument on the 7520 has more body and space, a fancy way of saying it conveys more information if you like.

The 7510 definately still has a place in the market tho, in fact if I already had the 7520 and needed an additional unit the 7510 would still be it, on a main system where the primary listening source will be loudspeakers it is still an excellent unit at a very low price, the 7520 has a USB port and a very good headphone section which suits my requirement perfectly while I am in my office.

The sound I am sure will mature a little more which is no bad thing. I also had some guys in the office where I work have a little listen, all agreed the sound was amazing, all of them were grinning ear to ear and tapping their feet along to Dire Straits and Eric Clapton and none of them wanted to give it back. All of them thought the 7520 cost me at least £400 on the strength of the sound and all were very surprised at how little it cost.

A while back I spent a lot of time looking into headphones for gaming on my pc, after hearing the GS1000's in action I figured that a good set of cans paired with good sound processing would give my ears the right amount of detail required to create a believable soundstage in game.

After listening to and dismissing lots of cans aimed at gamers with 5.1 and an array of other crap (If its aimed at gamers it is probably useless) I settled for the Grado's (SR80's) as they are sooooo revealing. My only source of amplification at this point was the headphone socket on the control pod of my Logitech Z-5500's and they did not sound anywhere near as good as they did on the amp in store so I had made my mind up at this stage that an amp would have to be purchased, the only problem was that I did not require all the functionality or size of an amp in my office so started Googling headphone amps which led me to the 7510, after setting it up I was immediately impressed at how much the sound had improved, definately night and day over both the headphone out on the X-FI card and the Z-5500's but also over the 7 year old DV717 player in my lounge. Playing Left4Dead through this combo had people calling me a cheat as I was shooting the enemy through walls based purely on what I could hear. Trying the same today with the 7520 was even more impressive, on busy sections of the game I can hear far more than I could previously which is fantastic.

I can also confirm that through the USB port the 7520 is recognised as a seperate sound card and can not utilise the processing of game/movie audio from any other sound card you have in your system, the Kernel Sound plugin for Foobar has also refused to output sound through the USB and so the digital ouput on your pc will have to be used if you are particular about the route your audio takes, I personally have not heard any difference in the sound from the USB compared to the Coax but I'm sure some might.

Another thing that impressed me was the fact the opamps are not soldered in place on the headphone section and can be upgraded if you so wish to go down this route, its not something I will do for a while as I am very happy with the sound as is. A number of electronics engineers where I work (Aerospace company) also commented on its well designed circuitry and upgrade options and the fact the headphone section looks as if it can be lifted out seperately for those who want to get your soldering irons out and upgrade caps etc.

As you have probably guessed I am very happy thus far!

Tyrone

[marscay]

I can also confirm that through the USB port the 7520 is recognised as a seperate sound card and can not utilise the processing of game/movie audio from any other sound card you have in your system, the Kernel Sound plugin for Foobar has also refused to output sound through the USB and so the digital ouput on your pc will have to be used if you are particular about the route your audio takes, I personally have not heard any difference in the sound from the USB compared to the Coax but I'm sure some might.

Tyrone

if you want to use the USB connection with Foobar try the Asio4all driver, works very well with my 7520/7510.

nice write up btw - i'm still waiting for my 7520 to settle down a bit, i have quite a revealing HiFi setup and it's still a bit shrill for my ears in the first 20-30 hours.

there's definitely more & tighter bass versus the 7510 6/4 that i've noticed so far and the midrange has improved, i agree with Tizer in that there is more meat or body to the sound.....much cleaner resolution......tbh it sounds like another power amp has been added to my gear i liked the 7510 but even with less than 30hours on the 7520 it's flaws are quickly shown up if you have the gear to bring out the improvements in the 7520. i can see why Stan has seemingly got unfairly treated at a certain other forum because this DAC is insane value for the money and in these harsh economic times a top quality affordable product like the 7520 is probably the giant killer they're afraid of.

i had doubts as to whether the 7520 would be much of an upgrade over the MOD21 7510 and for the price i am gobsmacked by the quality and i've still got improvements to come from the DAC itself and a PSU upgrade

[tizer2000uk]

i had doubts as to whether the 7520 would be much of an upgrade over the MOD21 7510 and for the price i am gobsmacked by the quality and i've still got improvements to come from the DAC itself and a PSU upgrade

Well I just swapped out the stock psu for a Yuasa lead acid battery (Reading 13.6v)and the sound just got kicked up a notch! Never thought the difference would be so pronounced, the soundstage has now lept further from the speakers and instruments have more weight and air around them, the sound really is more dynamic now, and the difference was better still through my Grado's. A very good upgrade until the new psu is released.

[marscay]

swapped the wall wart for a maplin 12-15v psu on the weekend, haven't had any time to compare properly yet but my first impression was that bass depth went up a notch with the aftermarket psu @ 13.5v - Nickelback was really rocking the place at moderate volumes and then i got that look from the mrs

[drumlins4ever]

Well I just swapped out the stock psu for a Yuasa lead acid battery (Reading 13.6v)and the sound just got kicked up a notch! Never thought the difference would be so pronounced, the soundstage has now lept further from the speakers and instruments have more weight and air around them, the sound really is more dynamic now, and the difference was better still through my Grado's. A very good upgrade until the new psu is released.

No offense but you guys must have incredible ears , Its very difficult (for me) to hear the diff between the 7520 and my old CA AZUR cd player , i can hear it but only just.

I think the following plays a huge part in what we hear

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics

I just get VERY skeptical when people hear these huge differences between power supplies
And for your info ,i work as a pro piano tuner and musician so my ears are fairly good at listening.

Sorry if i upset anyone , the 7520 is a lovely dac for sure but c'mon get a grip lads ,,,,

[Peter Stockwell]

Tyrone,

Brilliant review! I'm an old fart and it has never once occured to me that high quality sound would be of the slightest interest to gamers. A revelation.

[sponge]

As a bit of sceptic when it come to long burning-in periods for electronic equipment, I have to admit that I may have to reconsider my thinking.

When I received my 7520 on Wednesday (the 25th) I connected up with my K701's in the headphone socket and thought "Hmmm, well - There's scope for improvement". The sound to me was very thin - Bright even - And where's the bass?
However, I had read about the quite extended burning-in some members had said was necessary, so I stuck the Ultrasone Test CD in the portable CDP - Optical out into the DAC, selected repeat and left it to simmer.

Here we are now with about 60 hours on the clock and I have just had a listen. Well! Bass is back, there's detail in spades and the huge K701 soundstage is, if anything even wider. I'm grinning as I listen as I feel the DAC has even more to give. I'll hold back on any critical listening and comparison to my normal headphone amp until we have 100+ hours.

I'm going to enjoy the 7520 I know it - So to any new owners or potential owners: Just be patient and get some burn-in hours logged, it's well worth the wait.

Ken

[sanchezxxx]

Hi All,

It was me that popped round to test the new DAC with my AKG 701. I was suitably impressed to walk away with the DAC but mine has only had a couple of hours burn in. Will post a proper review later in the week once I have been able to spend some proper time with the unit. I will say now that the amp in this can drive the AKG's loud without any issue.