Hello,

I was about to purchase a DAC1 when I stumbled accross this post and thought I couldn't poaaibly do that before i gave the DA10 it'a chance. After a couple of weeks i finally had the chance to have both devices at home...

my main intention is to play music from my pc, so i actually want to connect the converter to my pc.
The DA10 had problems reading the signals from my terratec producer phase 22 sound card. it was quite interesting: the card has only an RC out. into the RCA in of the lavry: no sound came out, no green lock light went on. i then plugged into the xlr in by means of an adapter plug: this worked. and it also worked in the optical in by means of a coax to optical converter. However i did not like the sound. It was harsh. E.g. Norah Jones on her new album: went on my nerves..(I am a fan of her though..:-)
And interestingly: it was better with the optical converter than with the xlr in. I then connected the da10 to a cd player's optical out. Now it sounded like i expected it first..much better...
So i do not think the device is defective, but it seems to react allergically to my sound card. this same sound card and the dac1, but also a 15 year old dac and a RME ADI2 had no problems what so ever with each other. Ok, never mind. I did not want to rule the da10 out just because of this since i could still try to find another card that would interact more willingly with it. so in order to be able to compare the da10 and the dac1 on a fair basis, i carried out the comparative listening only with the cd player as a transport. rest of the equipment: dynaudio confidence c1 and class a monoblocks by AVM. SO: not crazy, but definitely solid.

I listened for several hours to pieces i knew well .back and forth...and I am sure that i prefer the dac1. for one simple reason mainly: i find it puts solo instruments into the room in a much more credible manner. I would like to explain it like this:with the dac1, a voice, or a solo violin seem to come out from a well defined circle somewhere in front of me, while with the da10 i found this circle to rather be a vertical oval...the violin got the size of a cello or bass...maybe this explains why people say that the lavry produces a larger soundstage. But since i attach alot of importance to the reproduction of voices and i love my favorite tchaikovsky violin concerto with perlman (chesky) i noticed these differences very clearly and felt i should relate them here. I am not an expert nore a professional, but i have been listening to music for many years attentively. I could never hear anything that was in favor of the lavry, buti did hear things that were clearly in favor of the dac1. This, and the fact that i want to use it with my pc lead me easily to the conclusion to order the dac 1 usb (i will then have the option to decide wether i want to run it from usb or from my soundcard with ASIO).

You surely have experienced incidents, where people would say that a kid looks just like the mother, while others would say clearly the father...is one right and the other wrong? for me it is clear: they all are right. and how is it possible? because they pay attention to different parts in the face. while some people will take the overall shape of the face as a reference, or the eyes, some will take the mouth, the chin...and put more emphasis on these parts...so the rest gets pushed back. and this leads to the different results.

I think the evaluation of hifi components works in a similar manner too.

Andy.

everyone should make up his own mind...

dan,

when are ya gonna try the mytek stereo96 dac?

http://www.mytekdigital.com/products/stereo96dac.htm

thanks,

doug s.