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Re: Audio Note DAC Kit 1.1 Awesome!

216.116.164.12

Posted by Bill on March 28, 2000 at 07:20:05

In Reply to: Audio Note DAC Kit 1.1 Awesome! posted by Tom Berry on March 27, 2000 at 13:05:05:

I sent mine back. It was rolled off and lacking in dynamics in my system. The sound was very smooth and the tonality was good and vocals were absolutely grain-free. But the music lacked life and sparkle. It sounded closed in and much less detailed and dynamic compared to the MSB link DAC.
I called AudioNote and there was some question about impedance matching. The Dac 1.1 has a 6300ohm output impedance due to it's use of a single 12au7 with no transformer or cathode follower. I thought my amp had a 40k input impedance which, according to AudioNote, is not a good match for the DAC 1.1. But a phone call to the manufacturer of the amp confirmed it was actually 100k which should have been a better match.

I tried the DAC 1.1 with an active pre and ran into the same problems. The pre I used was an ET Foreplay which, in all fairness, is not the final word in detail retrieval or dynamics. I switched interconnects, rolled the tubes using Amperex, Sylvania, and RCA Clear tops, and tried plugging the unit into different outlets and was not able to get the sound I wanted.

Again, this is just my experience and is limited to my system. Maybe a state-of-the-art pre would have let the 1.1 shine.

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