Audio-gd Reference 5 DAC - impressions and nudies

[pete_mac]

I recently bought a Reference 5 which popped up for sale on stereo.net.au and onsold my DAC19DSP. The Ref 5 is basically the balanced version of the DAC19DSP and has four PCM1704UK chips vs two chips in the DAC19. All four chips in the Ref 5 are used even if you only use the RCA outputs. The balanced outs may come on handy if I manage to one day secure a certain Sansui amp that I have a hankering for.

It's a shame that these beasties are now discontinued - nowadays you need to spend $1850 for a Ref 10.2 (4 x 1704UK with a preamp and head-amp) or $1900 for a Ref 7.1 (8 x 1704UK, DAC only) in order to enjoy some 1704UK goodness from audio-gd.

Sound-wise it is very similar to the DAC19 in terms of tonality, but with a noticeable improvement in detail retrieval and overall accuracy. Suffice to say that I really like it!

The quality of the casework is noticeably better - solid aluminium panels all-round rather than pressed steel top, bottom and sides and an aluminium front panel. The casework (along with the extra transformer!) take the weight from 4.5kg for the DAC19 to 9.5kg for the Ref 5.

Anyhow, I thought I'd share a few pics of Kingwa's handywork.



http://i535.photobucket.com/albums/ee359/petemacozfoz/ref55.jpg

http://i535.photobucket.com/albums/ee359/petemacozfoz/ref51.jpg

http://i535.photobucket.com/albums/ee359/petemacozfoz/ref53.jpg

http://i535.photobucket.com/albums/ee359/petemacozfoz/ref6.jpg

http://i535.photobucket.com/albums/ee359/petemacozfoz/ref54.jpg

http://i535.photobucket.com/albums/ee359/petemacozfoz/ref58.jpg

[Reid Malenfant]

Looks a beauty :) Some serious thought & work went into the internal layout by the looks of it :)

But I will never understand why these people make a top quality DAC & leave off the best digital connection of the whole lot :doh: AES/EBU...

How hard is it to fit one more connector so you can have a balanced digital input :rolleyes:

[pete_mac]

Agreed re: the alternative digital output connection options!

Kingwa can/will fit different options if you ask for them (eg. replacing the optical and/or USB with BNC) but to be honest I am not sure if he offers AES/EBU as an option.

If I had bought this DAC brand new I would have asked for a proper 75 ohm BNC connection instead of the optical connection.