Jimbos Audio ramblings

I bought a behringer Ultramatch Pro some years ago mainly as it had an upsampling facility and I was interested to see what that brought the table. It is a real swiss army knife type of thing which is really for the pro user but at £100 I thought it was worth a punt. It uses the AKM4393VF Dac chip. I have not been able to find any info as to how this compares with the AKM 4493SEQ. However it was clearly good enough for Mr Lampizator to use his talents to improve on the Ultramatch (see link) and I found details on Audio Science Review where 2 versions of the RME-ADI-2 Dac were tested one with the 4393VF and the other an ESS Sabre chip. Neither showed much difference in the tests carried out.

The Behringer has AES/EBU digital input as well as all the usual digital inputs except USB. It has Balanced digital outs and balanced analogue outs. It is a really good performer and my most used or "go to" Dac, probably because I know its performance inside out having used it for several years.

So if your experience is similar to mine then there is nothing shabby about a lot of Dacs in the £100 bracket. I recently bought an ifi Zen Dac v2 as it was £115 at Richer Sounds. This is a USB only Dac using a Burr Brown Dac chip. There is RCA and balanced outs and the ability to uses one of 6 different filters including DSD and MQA. I use this in DSD mode and it is pretty good, a bit more in your face than the Behringer but nicely musical.

http://lampizator.eu/lampizator/tran...behringer.html

The AK4493 seems to be the 'go to' chip for reasonably priced high performance Dacs, the Topping E30 II uses it too.

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Originally Posted by Firebottle

The AK4493 seems to be the 'go to' chip for reasonably priced high performance Dacs, the Topping E30 II uses it too.

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Think it is one of the newer DAC chips AK produced after the factory fire. It certainly packs a high specification and it is used in their velvet sound DACs - whatever that maybe...???

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Originally Posted by Firebottle

The AK4493 seems to be the 'go to' chip for reasonably priced high performance Dacs, the Topping E30 II uses it too.

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I'm not sure it's the SEQ Velvet chip though?

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Originally Posted by Puffin

I bought a behringer Ultramatch Pro some years ago mainly as it had an upsampling facility and I was interested to see what that brought the table. It is a real swiss army knife type of thing which is really for the pro user but at £100 I thought it was worth a punt. It uses the AKM4393VF Dac chip. I have not been able to find any info as to how this compares with the AKM 4493SEQ. However it was clearly good enough for Mr Lampizator to use his talents to improve on the Ultramatch (see link) and I found details on Audio Science Review where 2 versions of the RME-ADI-2 Dac were tested one with the 4393VF and the other an ESS Sabre chip. Neither showed much difference in the tests carried out.

The Behringer has AES/EBU digital input as well as all the usual digital inputs except USB. It has Balanced digital outs and balanced analogue outs. It is a really good performer and my most used or "go to" Dac, probably because I know its performance inside out having used it for several years.

So if your experience is similar to mine then there is nothing shabby about a lot of Dacs in the £100 bracket. I recently bought an ifi Zen Dac v2 as it was £115 at Richer Sounds. This is a USB only Dac using a Burr Brown Dac chip. There is RCA and balanced outs and the ability to uses one of 6 different filters including DSD and MQA. I use this in DSD mode and it is pretty good, a bit more in your face than the Behringer but nicely musical.

http://lampizator.eu/lampizator/tran...behringer.html

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Interesting Rob. I would certainly like to hear a Lampizator but I have a feeling the soundstage on them maybe a bit too big by all accounts?

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Originally Posted by Jimbo

Interesting Rob. I would certainly like to hear a Lampizator but I have a feeling the soundstage on them maybe a bit too big by all accounts?

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I would not be put off by what is said about the soundstage. I have 8 Dacs all of different vintage and different Dac chips and the Behringer does not stand out in that respect. You may have a problem getting hold of one as I am not sure they are made any more. There are 2nd hand ones for sale on ebay but if they have been used in a pro set up may be a bit battered. It could also be a sideways step for you unless you are intending to "Lamp" it. I modified loads of stuff over many years, but those mods seemed a bit of a step too far for me.

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Originally Posted by Puffin

I would not be put off by what is said about the soundstage. I have 8 Dacs all of different vintage and different Dac chips and the Behringer does not stand out in that respect. You may have a problem getting hold of one as I am not sure they are made any more. There are 2nd hand ones for sale on ebay but if they have been used in a pro set up may be a bit battered. It could also be a sideways step for you unless you are intending to "Lamp" it. I modified loads of stuff over many years, but those mods seemed a bit of a step too far for me.

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Interestingly there is going to be a review coming up of a Lampizator DAC build which was I think made available freely from one of his earlier DAC designs.

It will have 3 separate power supplies and is doable as a DIY project so I will be keen to see how that goes. I will post it up on here when its available.

Pointlessly complicated and pointlessly expensive.

I can see lots of reasons for not wanting a cheap Chinese DAC like Topping or SMSL - don't like the looks, the build quality, concerns over reliability/longevity, doesn't have some feature that is required, ethical issues with buying Chinese products, no bragging rights on forums or with hi-fi cronies.

But it's a fact that they do the task of digital to analogue conversion perfectly (or as perfectly as is possible).

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Originally Posted by Macca

Pointlessly complicated and pointlessly expensive.

I can see lots of reasons for not wanting a cheap Chinese DAC like Topping or SMSL - don't like the looks, the build quality, concerns over reliability/longevity, doesn't have some feature that is required, ethical issues with buying Chinese products, no bragging rights on forums or with hi-fi cronies.

But it's a fact that they do the task of digital to analogue conversion perfectly (or as perfectly as is possible).

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I actually think a lot of the cheap Chinese DACs look great, unobtrusive and discreet. The larger more expensive bling DAC cases look gaudy and excessive to me. I would want to hide them away as many of them just look OTT.

I agree with you regarding the cheap Chinese DACs ability to convert almost perfectly;) however what I am not sure about is the influence power supplies and analogue output stage has on the sound. My bet would be it does manipulate the sound somewhat but whether that is accurate or veering away from the "truth" or not is a guess. I think much of the extra stuff on higher end DACs is just there to make the sound more "palatable"?:) ( analogue??)

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Originally Posted by Jimbo

I actually think a lot of the cheap Chinese DACs look great, unobtrusive and discreet. The larger more expensive bling DAC cases look gaudy and excessive to me. I would want to hide them away as many of them just look OTT.

I agree with you regarding the cheap Chinese DACs ability to convert almost perfectly;) however what I am not sure about is the influence power supplies and analogue output stage has on the sound. My bet would be it does manipulate the sound somewhat but whether that is accurate or veering away from the "truth" or not is a guess. I think much of the extra stuff on higher end DACs is just there to make the sound more "palatable"?:) ( analogue??)

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well you can see from measurements taken from the analogue outputs (so that includes power supply, analogue output stage, in fact everything) that noise and distortion is negligible at all audible frequencies. So it's not a guess, by those parameters performance is indeed as perfect as it needs to be. The signal going to pre or power amp is accurate to the source.