Re-Review / Re-Post of TC-7520 Review
So here is another review - somebody please check the nightly backups are working, I'm not going to do this again!:doh:
I received my TC-7520 the week before last, two days after it shipped, and about a week before I was expecting it. Good start!
First Impressions
The unit looks good in spite of lacking some of the flashy accoutrements of some of its competition. It feels solid, the finish is clean, the detail on the front has a minimalist, quality feel, and I like blue LEDs! Around back, the connectors are clearly labelled and the screws underneath all sit nicely. You get the feeling that you could happily drop this down the stairs and it would still work. I won't :)
The volume knob moves smoothly, with perhaps a little less resistance than I would like, but it does have a quality feel to the motion.
I don't like the wall-wart PSU but I won't complain at this price! At least it is small.
Setup
I listen mainly with headphones, so the headphone amp stage is of as much interest to me as the DAC itself.
The TC-7520 is connected via TOSLINK to a Mac Pro, set to 44k1, 24-bit output. I play mainly ALAC (lossless) files from iTunes, although there are some mp3 and AAC in there too, as well as a few higher resolution 96k-24bit WAV files. All of the ALAC is ripped by yours truly using MAX to get bit-perfect transfers. I'm mainly listening on Audio-Technica ATH-M50 headphones, which are very revealing and detailed (sometimes to a fault). I have others I sometimes use to see if what I am hearing is cans-related, but I know the M-50s really well.
Burn-In
My TC-7520 has about 200 hours of use on the clock now, and I think it has settled down quite a lot.
The DAC burned in over about 50 hours. Initially there was a sibilant character to the high's and an almost hyper-detailed character to the sound in general, but it has settled down and opened out to become much more musical than my initial impression of it.
The head amp is *mostly* burned in now. It managed to be both tight up high and sloppy down low to start with. The tightness at the high end was quite quick to disappear (30-40 hours) and the bass has firmed up a lot, and is still improving. It is still challenged a little by some of my most difficult tracks that are very bassy and busy, especially if there is a lot of gain in the recording. However the improvement so far has been substantial *and* is continuing *and* I am nit-picking over some dozen particularly challenging tracks. Give it another 100 hours, and I am sure it will be fine.
Warmup
I find that the amp in particular needs about 30 minutes from cold to sound at its best. I rarely turn stuff off anyway.
Impressions
The first thing I notice when listening via the 7520 is actually the spaciousness of the sound stage, even when listening with closed headphones. I can place individual violins of the LSO when listening to Elgar. I could almost reach out and smack the guy with the cough in the bar where Miles Davis is playing. The imaging is very precise, and live music in particular just, well, comes to life.
The detail and clarity are also excellent. Fret movements, picks, snares, spit(!) - its all there. I like to hear detail in my music, even to a fault. I am loving the detail that the 7520 reveals, especially in live and/or largely acoustic music. Some of my stuff is originally ripped from vinyl and even in that I am hearing detail that I had forgotten (or never knew) was there.
Vocals are lovely - especially female vocals (although that may just be my preference anyway). I'm finding it hard to multi-task when listening via the TC-7520 because I keep having to stop and listen!
When playing "loud" music, I am impressed by the ability of the 7520 to clearly show detail in the midst of distortion (note comments about the amp and busy bass though).
Overall, the character of the DAC + Head Amp is slightly warm (but without adding colour), not at all clinical, and remarkably versatile. I can go from Punk to Jazz to Metal to Classical without noticing any real shortcomings.
I should also mention the noise floor of the amp - there isn't one! Turned up all the way, I can't hear any hiss at all through 38-ohm headphones. None at all. Nice.
USB
I have A/B'd the USB and the TOSLINK connectors and can't discern any difference at all. That's a good USB stage!
Low Bit-rate Files
As I have posted earlier, the TC-7520 seems to do something to enhance the sound (or at least mask the errors) in low bit-rate files. It is almost like some kind of up-sampling is at work (although I doubt it, given Stan's opinion of up-sampling). 64 and 128-bit .mp3 files don't sound like lossless by any means, but they don't offend as much as normal. Almost as though something has smoothed out the spiky bits of the waveform where the errors are, and left the rest alone. It is not that they sound better, as much as that they don't sound as bad! Given the detail that the 7520 otherwise imparts, I would expect it to emphasise the difference between the LQ and HQ files, and it does, just not offensively.
My Verdict
I paid USD200 for this device. I am very happy.
I think the DAC is excellent value for money. I'm not an expert on high-end DACs, but I have heard a few, and to my mind the TC-7520 is proof of the law of diminishing returns. I think you'd need to spend a pile of money on the rest of your rig before you needed something better then this.
If you are going to use headphones a lot, then the news is even better. This isn't the very best head amp I have heard, but it is at least 80% of amps which cost five times the money of the 7520, and then you'd still need a DAC.
