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In Reply to: RE: ESS9028 dac with filter combinations posted by fmak on December 18, 2016 at 00:41:16
I have the Gustard X20U Pro here and am working up mods on it. The 9028 is way more detailed than the older 9018 chip. Stock it is OK. Sounds outrageous with some mods (listening with coax input and usb board removed). It sounds better to remove the usb board if you are not using it. Yes, many filters to choose from and they sound mo different with the mods than without. Right now enjoying the apodizing filter.
Follow Ups:
Seems to have pretty good inards.
Can you make the new ESS9028 sound 'natural' like a good multi-bit ladder DAC?
King Wa at Audio-GD is running out of PCM1704U-Ks and will be forced to move to more modern DAC chips soon and irrespective of what others say, discreet component resistor ladder DACs run into problems at higher bit depths so...
Just wondering.
How do the two differ in SQ? Is 9028 better than 9018 on same filter ie fast?
9028 has more information of every type. Mo space, more air, more micro detail, more separation of instruments. Each string on guitar resonates separately and forever.....giving more emotion to the sound. Just way, way less noise and lower distortion. 9018 sounds like mud! You will not hear all this with stock Gustard versus stock Gustard. You need to do at least the AC mods, and the better clock cable to hear this. You will hear mo info but not this level of stuff. The AC mods alone make the soundstage way wider....the cymbal was behind the right speaker before mods and now is one foot outside the right speaker. I have not even finished level one mods and it is more detailed then level 2.5 on old Gustard. This thing is magic! I will be doing mo mods tomorrow. Cannot wait to try the Pulsar clock in it!
By the way, its still an ESS DAC. It is not an R2R DAC. However, I have no idea what its sonic limitation is until I finish modding it. All I know is that I cried spontaneously the other day listening to Luiz Bonfa. The Gustard has DSD512 capability via I2S and later next year Singxer is going to put out a new gadget that will allow DSD512 via I2S. Some say that upsampling everything to DSD512 using a high powered Windows 10 computer running HQplayer simply is the best way to listen to PCM or whatever. Here is a link of a guy that is using a $16,000 server and just received the latest $20,000? Lampy Golden Gate that can do DSD512 and it sounds like it is beating his old reference Trinity DAC ($40,000?):
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?22114-Lampi-GG-512dsd-44k-48k-superclocks-RTR-PCM-KR242-grounding-post-SGM-server
The thing is, that you can make a great powerful Windows 10 computer running HQplayer, Roon and Audiofidelizer all for $1500 that sounds 80%? as good as the $16,000 thang he is using......and you can buy an IFI new DSD micro black for $550 and get DSD512 to work with it. Gustard should be better but can only do 256 right now though usb. Cool stuff happening real cheap!
I saw him at RMAF 2015 and he was pretty enthralled with the Trinity DAC.
Worth every penny of the $40-$50K he paid for it, said he.
If one could somehow get HDTracks to convert Redbook to DSD 512 in an affordable PC/Mac and then somehow converted from USB to I2R at DSD 512, into the I2S input of the less-than-a-kilobuck Gustard DAC...
That would be something!
well......it actually seems that using the SGM server with HQ Player and converting everything to dxd (384/352 pcm) is the hot tip.
stay tuned....
mikel
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