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This DAC/ headphone/tube buffer/ pre-amp for $350.00 is getting excellent reviews elsewhere on the web (Head-fi, Audio Karma) but not so much here.
Anyone here tried it?
Does the power cord upgrade make a difference?
Are the Bolder Audio mods worthwhile?
Here's a link:
http://shop.grantfidelity.com/Grant-Fidelity-TubeDAC-11-D-A-Converter.html
Follow Ups:
I recently purchased a TubeDAC-11 and so far I'm totally pleased with it's performance. As far as the power cord goes, I already had a very decent Audioquest NRG-3 on hand, so it was relegated to the TubeDAC. If I hadn't had the AQ, I would have seriously considered the Grant Fidelity power cord @ $125. Also had some decent 6DJ8's left over from my days with the Heart CDP and the TubeDAC only needs one. Currently using an Amperex. Another nice bonus with the TubeDAC is the volume pot. It does a MUCH better job of trimming volume levels than the pot on my CJ pre-amp which by comparison is a true PITA. In addition, the included digital cable sounds very good. I was told by Ian ( Grant Fidelity) that the included digital cable was decent and that seems to be true.....at least to my ear.
So in summary, yes, I'm happy with the TubeDAC. Will I sent it to Bolder? Maybe, but certainly not in the near future as it sounds very good in its present state. That said, it's always nice to know that an option like that exists.
I use Elrod Power Systems cords in my audio system. For my video system, I was looking for less expensive options. David Elrod actually recommended the $125 Grant Fidelity power cord, and I have been amazed. It is very, very good for the price. And I now have three of them.
It's not a bad DAC and fairly neutral in sound presentation. A friend has both the DAC-11 and a Maverick D1 DAC (almost the same as Grant Fidelity's older DAC-09). When we compared them we both prefer the Maverick's warmer and more natural presentation. So, it depends on your tonal preference.
The Boulder mods definitely brings better sound but at a substantial cost for a budget DAC.
Did they both have the same tube, and both using the tube outputs?Just wondering tube rolling would make a difference between the two DACs.
Seems a bit odd that one tube-buffered DAC would be smoother than another - I'd have thought the differences would have been on other parameters.
But, that Maverick is certainly a good price! And I thought the Grant Fidelity was cheap!
Edits: 07/23/12
The newer DAC-11 uses a different tube type than the DAC-09 or the Maverick. I purchased Raytheon tubes of both types and that is what we used to compared the DACs. The Raytheon is a warmer sounding tube than the original Chinese tube but the DAC-11 was still more neutral sounding than the Maverick.
I have the previous model the DAC-09....Great DAC!I doubt that a power Cord will make a difference in any piece of audio gear. It's 3 wires. A hot, Neutral, and A Ground. Make sure your House Current is not contaminated with Noisy Appliances or Fluorescent Lights. The Power Cord merely takes the Voltage out of your outlet and transfers it to your DAC. It's not going to do anything to the voltage coming out of the socket, no mater how expensive the outside sheathing looks. It is a very nice profit item for companies that sell them however.
Cut-Throat
Edits: 07/23/12
Thanks for the replies - I have to say, I am also a power cord skeptic, and am reluctant to pay $100.00 for a power cord to upgrade a $350.00 DAC.
But, I'm trying to keep an open mind. This reviewer said upgrading the power cord made a difference, so I guess that is why Grant Fidelity is offering the option:
http://stereomojo.com/Grant%20Audio%20Tube%20DAC11.htm/GrantAudioTubeDAC11.htm
I can certainly see your point, dollar-wise. If you skeptical but still curious, your can DIY equivalent cables for much less. If you are judicious about it, the DIY cables can be cheap enough, that is is worth it fir the solid connections.
Dave
Solid connections may be a point - in one thread on another site, the poster was complaining that the stock ("POS" is how he described it) TubeDAC-11 power cord had come out, and resulted in a transient or something that had blown some fuses elsewhere in his system.
Any reason?
Because, you know, if you did, you'd probably discover that you're missing on a very good chance to improve performance of your system.
Or at least do yourself a favor, and familiarize yourself with the reasons why power cords DO actually work. Search in Cable Asylum here is as good a start as anything.
"familiarize yourself with the reasons why power cords DO actually work. Search in Cable Asylum here is as good a start as anything."
Well, "power cords DO actually work" since we hear music...
But as to why they they affect stereos beyond that aspect seems obscure. I've been reading AA for many years and haven't seen any reliable information. Now there is a lot of arm-waving, speculations, and theories, some of which I suspect are true by the way, however I have yet to see a single instance where a putative cable mechanism has been identified, controlled, quantified and shown to be causally correlated to an audible difference or even a measurable effect.
I suspect that the main issues are weaknesses in the definition and design of our actual gear rather than the universal goodness of a particular cord and that addressing those issues would yield tremendous cost/benefit over buying hyper-expensive power cords.
Meanwhile I'm looking forward to your links that go beyond speculation to actual causality...
Regards, Rick
just testing.
The only that really matters is experiencing the product in question.
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
"The only that really matters is experiencing the product in question.
A nice pre-scientific world view. And if eating the white berry kills you before you have successfully bred then progress has indeed been made...
But for a given instance, you have a point, however the rub is trying to sorting out a multivariate system without being able to quantify the variables, the process bogs down fast.
Rick
It is MORE scientific, and mo betta scientific, to test, observe and experience....
Outside experience, - we have nada....
Yes, - these things are so dangerous, - poison berries indeed. Ha!!
There really isn't an historic, and weighted amount of evidence in the other direction or anything? (History of company, cost to manufacture, other satisfied owners, and others who've experienced them)?
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
Carcass is working with available Field Replacable Units. He swaps boxes and wires. He observes differences. He does not need to be concerned with the inner workings of these boxes or wires.
There are many plausible explanations for why a power cord can affect the sound, many centered around the possibility of the cord acting as an antenna to radiate and receive EMI. The problem is not lack of reasons, rather it's a surfeit of reasons, making it difficult to isolate a specific causal chain in any particular case.
It could be that Carcass is mistaken and fooling himself, but in light of many similar reports it seems reasonable that he does actually hear a difference. From his perspective it may not matter why it makes a difference, especially if the easiest and cheapest way to improve the sound is to swap a power cord. It could be that the problem could be better addressed inside the power supply of the DAC and even at lower cost, but that option may not be available and even if it is, the time spent pursuing this approach is likely to be more costly to a working man, not one of us retired old-farts who have too much time on our hands. :-)
As to the deniers who don't hear a difference, it may be they aren't listening, don't care, are deaf, are untrained, their equipment has such low quality that differences and/or music are nearly inaudible, or they can just be stubborn and pig headed and not hear any difference, just like some men fail to hear their wives on certain occasions. Or it may be that their equipment is well built and largely immune to the problems.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Meaning, that one may be good, too - but I haven't seen (heard) an instance of such in my life, after I moved on from an AV receiver with captive cord.
Granted, I've never owned any single piece of electronics that exceeds price of $10,000 new (and, of course, actually paid way less than that used). However, I've owned enough below that price cutoff, to state with confidence that the only reason power cord would NOT affect sound quality is the insufficient overall resolution of the system and/or - but that's my speculation - indiscriminate hearing.
"He [Carcass]observes differences. He does not need to be concerned with the inner workings of these boxes or wires."
I agree.
"The problem is not lack of reasons, rather it's a surfeit of reasons, making it difficult to isolate a specific causal chain in any particular case."
Well, I agree again.
Tony I can probably cough up more potential interactions between power cables and systems than most. And I can download a Ouija board on my iPad that can take over after that... All I'm saying is that the very thing I've never seen on AA are "the reasons why power cords DO actually work." And by that of course I mean work on the sound quality in some secondary manner. All I've seen are speculations concerning the causation.
Rick
http://db.AudioAsylum.com/mhtml/m.html?forum=general&n=117899&highlight=Power+cord+Ole&r=&search_url=%2Fcgi%2Fsearch.mpl%3Fsearchtext%3DPower%2Bcord%26b%3DAND%26topic%3D%26topics_only%3DN%26author%3DOle%26date1%3D%26date2%3D%26slowmessage%3D%26ip%3D%26sort%3Dscore%26sortOrder%3DDESC%26sortRank%3DForum%26forum%3DALL
Afterwards we discovered faith; it's all you need
Yup, shielding can help certain problems, sometimes a lot. But I think this instance was mostly an example, and a good one, of becoming more aware of the limits of your assumptions. It's not clear how carefully he pursued the actual case or if indeed he even tried it, it may have just been a gedanken experiment.
One of the reasons I say that is that the obvious next steps such as determining the points of susceptibility and verifying whether the shielding was the aspect of the cable design that really made the difference weren't mentioned. While it's plausible that shielding helped in this instance the mechanisms aren't really determinable from the post. Something as simple as moving the cables around would help answer that.
My perspective is from a lifetime working both with electronic systems and with other people working with electronics. Not that there is anything unique about electronics however, it just happens to be my field. It's really about us humans and how our thought processes can go awry. Being good at jumping to conclusions from sparse data probably had strong survival value in the jungle since being wrong and being slow had the same outcome. Nowadays however, like our appendix, it's an artifact that can work against us with some groups such as politicians, preachers and peddlers being infamous exploiters of this human tendency. Not all mind you, not all...
So where do cable hawkers fall in the grand scheme of things? What do you think? How about the component manufacturers?
Caveat emptor...
Rick
I have read that argument before, but it makes more sense to me with CD players than with power amps (with non-switching power supplies). A lot of inmates on the cable asylum claim that unshielded cables work better on non digital devices. I don't know for sure myself, but I do plan to experiment. I am open to the idea that power cords work, but I am also open to the idea that they don’t. I also suspect that this is very system dependant.
Dave
"I have read that argument before, but it makes more sense to me with CD players than with power amps (with non-switching power supplies)."
Actually that's not so strange given that my experience, also reported by many others, is that power cords make a much greater difference (generally) on things such as CD Players, DAC, preamps, etc. than they do on power amplifiers.
Short’s the best position they is. Bullet in the Brain
So, Yes I have actually tried a lot of them, and none of them provided any kind of difference. But, I say I "Doubt" as I have not tried them all or have heard a reason as to why they might sound better.Please tell me what the expensive Power Cable has inside it other than a Hot, Neutral and a Ground wire?
Cut-Throat
Edits: 07/23/12 07/23/12
I owned that and found it to be very responsive to power cord swaps, and also to isolation footers.
Many years ago I was going to be the subject for some blind tests to be hosted at my place ... the plan didn't go ahead in the end - long story.
Anyway I was simplifying the setup the decided I would run the JD100 stock, i.e. the supplied cord and no special isolation; FYI I was using FoculPods under the player, inexpensive so good bang for buck. However I found that not only was my facility at detecting differences diminished, but that I didn't much enjoy the sound!
Having gotten used to the sound of the "tweaked" JD100 I was less than impressed with how it sounded "stock".
Short’s the best position they is. Bullet in the Brain
You might want to try an Elrod Power Systems Statement Gold cord then. Or "listen" to various cords on a more revealing, neutral system. As for reasons and what's inside: if you do searches, you will find lots of discussions - here, on Audiogon, and on other sites.
That's sort of like saying there should be no difference in preamps, they all have caps, resistors and circuit boards or all 12AX7 tubes sound basically same, they're all made of metal and glass.
I actually asked what was in a "Upgraded Power Cord". Pre-amps have different circuit designs. As far as I know, Power cords have 3 Copper Wires and not too much of a difference in Circuit Design. From what I learned in electronics, they are a straight piece of wire.
Cut-Throat
Edits: 07/25/12
.
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
Please do tell what these other things are. I count three pins and three holes, so if there is something going on in between it would be nice to know what it is.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
There are differing geometries, usages of dampening materials, dielectrics, metal (conductors), plating, and on and on ...
I'm not making any attempt to qualify any of these things (their effect or lack of), I'm only pointing out obvious variety one sees in the marketplace.
Short’s the best position they is. Bullet in the Brain
where a plethora of devices spew noise back into the AC and radiate EMI energy.
With high current power amps, there are other advantages.
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