Enjoy the Silence by Tori Amos from Strange Little Girls.
Up from the Skies by Rickie Lee Jones from Pop Pop.
Abbas dac 2.1 se
- Thread starter jespera
- Start date
Up from the Skies by Rickie Lee Jones from Pop Pop.
At some point Ron and I will compare my Abbas to his Baltic 4. We just haven't arranged it yet.
Russ,
Okay, now I understand your point much more clearly, you explanation/description hits the bullseye.Highly emphasized audio details versus natural emotionally musical engagement.
Charles
I was using the Logitech server OS package. I didn't try others, so I can't comment in that regard.
As you probably remember, I'm a power supply snob, so I too was impressed when I saw the new Magna Mano dual chassis version. I'm sure it sounds better, as every improvement I've ever made to a power supply was rewarded with lower distortion and more relaxed listening.
Looking forward to read about it.
Also cant wait to reading reviews of the new 3.2sig and 3.2se just landed/incoming.
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Spot on.
If you want to count nose hair on the guitarist, get the ess dac.
If you want to get into the music, get the abbas.
Yesterday I relistened to the tracks that I initially heard distortion on when I first got the DAC. No distortion now, even with Roon headroom management turned off.
Hmmm… The distortion was definitely there when we first fired up the DAC. Ron heard it too. My guess (and this is definitely a guess) is that the tube clock needs to warm up and stabilize before the SPDIF receiver will consistently lock to the digital stream.
I edited my original post to include this update.
Hmmm… The distortion was definitely there when we first fired up the DAC. Ron heard it too. My guess (and this is definitely a guess) is that the tube clock needs to warm up and stabilize before the SPDIF receiver will consistently lock to the digital stream.
I edited my original post to include this update.
May or may not be relevant but occasionally when rushing into CD listening the SPIDF receiver on my 4.1 wont read and have to reboot and let warm up before inserting a disk into the transport. It could be a communication thing but I like the slow down and warm up theory.
Hey Everyone,
I guess I'm a member of the Abbas club now that I own a 3.2 Signature DAC. First, let me tell you my "rookie mistake" story. I did receive my DAC in mid October but I couldn't get it to work. First all I heard was static noise then it started to play half a song then stopped. I bought replacement tubes and replaced all except for EZ11 and it still didn't work. I recently bought an Audio Note M5 Phono pre-amp. While moving components around, I swapped the Abbas RCA interconnect with a different brand then holy moly the DAC started to sing. Long story short, my dog bit on the wood part of the connector when I first got the cable. There were teeth marks on the wood plug but I didn't think it "short" the cable. I removed the damaged wood plug, swapped out the cable and the rig still works
As for the quality of the sound, I'm not good on describing sounds. I don't have great DACs to compare against. If there's one word to describe it, I'd say it's very musical. Good music stirs up emotions and to me that's all that matters. I have someone with better ears who will come later this month to help tune the system so I'll ask him for his thoughts.
Here's my setup and I'd like to get some advice on a few things:
Source: Custom Windows-based Music Server with JCAT XE USB powered by JCAT Optimio Duo 3 and HDPlex 800W ATX LPSU
Streamer/Player software: Roon core and endpoint (mainly for usability)
DDC: Audio-GD DI20HE
DAC: Abbas Audio 3.2 Signature
Pre-amp: Audio Note M5 Phono
Amps: Bob Carver Cherry 180 monoblocks
Speakers: Marten Design Bird 2
Questions:
- Does anyone here have an amplifier built by Abbas and pairing with an Abbas DAC?
- For those who has a DI20HE DDC, do you use internal clock or external master clock? I've been using a cheap GPSDO feeding 10Mhz clock signal to the DI20HE. I'm looking for an improvement in this area so I just order a LHY OCK-2 master clock.
- Does anyone connect an Abbas DAC to their amps directly? Abbas mentioned that he does not use a pre-amp when he tunes his products. 4.5V RMS is plenty to drive the amps. My problem is with volume control. I'd have to use Roon DSP volume to attenuate the signal and I really don't want to apply additional filters unless I have to (to keep the signal as pristine as possible). Note that the Abbas DAC is NOS so high resolution files would have to be down-sampled by Roon. Connecting the 3.2 Sig DAC to the Audio Note M5, the music gets really loud at just a quarter volume.
I guess I'm a member of the Abbas club now that I own a 3.2 Signature DAC. First, let me tell you my "rookie mistake" story. I did receive my DAC in mid October but I couldn't get it to work. First all I heard was static noise then it started to play half a song then stopped. I bought replacement tubes and replaced all except for EZ11 and it still didn't work. I recently bought an Audio Note M5 Phono pre-amp. While moving components around, I swapped the Abbas RCA interconnect with a different brand then holy moly the DAC started to sing. Long story short, my dog bit on the wood part of the connector when I first got the cable. There were teeth marks on the wood plug but I didn't think it "short" the cable. I removed the damaged wood plug, swapped out the cable and the rig still works
As for the quality of the sound, I'm not good on describing sounds. I don't have great DACs to compare against. If there's one word to describe it, I'd say it's very musical. Good music stirs up emotions and to me that's all that matters. I have someone with better ears who will come later this month to help tune the system so I'll ask him for his thoughts.
Here's my setup and I'd like to get some advice on a few things:
Source: Custom Windows-based Music Server with JCAT XE USB powered by JCAT Optimio Duo 3 and HDPlex 800W ATX LPSU
Streamer/Player software: Roon core and endpoint (mainly for usability)
DDC: Audio-GD DI20HE
DAC: Abbas Audio 3.2 Signature
Pre-amp: Audio Note M5 Phono
Amps: Bob Carver Cherry 180 monoblocks
Speakers: Marten Design Bird 2
Questions:
- Does anyone here have an amplifier built by Abbas and pairing with an Abbas DAC?
- For those who has a DI20HE DDC, do you use internal clock or external master clock? I've been using a cheap GPSDO feeding 10Mhz clock signal to the DI20HE. I'm looking for an improvement in this area so I just order a LHY OCK-2 master clock.
- Does anyone connect an Abbas DAC to their amps directly? Abbas mentioned that he does not use a pre-amp when he tunes his products. 4.5V RMS is plenty to drive the amps. My problem is with volume control. I'd have to use Roon DSP volume to attenuate the signal and I really don't want to apply additional filters unless I have to (to keep the signal as pristine as possible). Note that the Abbas DAC is NOS so high resolution files would have to be down-sampled by Roon. Connecting the 3.2 Sig DAC to the Audio Note M5, the music gets really loud at just a quarter volume.
I use two different TVC (passive pre) instead of an active preamp. It works great with the Abbas high output voltage.
@vinhxn,
“ If there's one word to describe it, I'd say it's very musical. Good music stirs up emotions and to me that's all that matters.”
Agreed, this is the most important and cherished attribute an audio component can offer. If it doesn’t connect and engage you with the music, why bother? The music should come alive, be expressive and thoroughly stimulate one’s emotions to the music they are listening to.
@vinhxn , if you have very limited volume control range before sound becomes too loud, this suggests excessive gain of your audio system.
Your Audio Note M5 (And or the power amplifiers) are likely high gain level components. 4.5V output from the DAC is pretty high. I asked Abbas to make my output voltage 3.5 (Which he did).
My current Yamamoto DAC has 3.2 v and this is fine in my system. My Coincident Line stage has 10 db of gain. Speakers are 94 db sensitivity. Volume control settings usually between 11 to1 oclock with most recordings.
Charles
“ If there's one word to describe it, I'd say it's very musical. Good music stirs up emotions and to me that's all that matters.”
Agreed, this is the most important and cherished attribute an audio component can offer. If it doesn’t connect and engage you with the music, why bother? The music should come alive, be expressive and thoroughly stimulate one’s emotions to the music they are listening to.
@vinhxn , if you have very limited volume control range before sound becomes too loud, this suggests excessive gain of your audio system.
Your Audio Note M5 (And or the power amplifiers) are likely high gain level components. 4.5V output from the DAC is pretty high. I asked Abbas to make my output voltage 3.5 (Which he did).
My current Yamamoto DAC has 3.2 v and this is fine in my system. My Coincident Line stage has 10 db of gain. Speakers are 94 db sensitivity. Volume control settings usually between 11 to1 oclock with most recordings.
Charles
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I use a modded icon audio la4 pre. After modification it has two outputs: one with amplification and one with just a single valve buffer stage. I use the latter.
As for feeding the dac: i use roon to downsample to max 48khz/24bit. With normal 44/16 cd material this means just straight pass through. With 96 and 192 khz “hires” it just means roon needs to send every second or fourth bit word. So a very simple operation. The spdif receiver chops from 24 to 16 bits.
Abbas does a valve clocked usb-spdif converter which i use and like. He also does separate valve clocks which you could probably use with your ddc.
As for feeding the dac: i use roon to downsample to max 48khz/24bit. With normal 44/16 cd material this means just straight pass through. With 96 and 192 khz “hires” it just means roon needs to send every second or fourth bit word. So a very simple operation. The spdif receiver chops from 24 to 16 bits.
Abbas does a valve clocked usb-spdif converter which i use and like. He also does separate valve clocks which you could probably use with your ddc.
@Artnet sorry I didn't respond to your last PM. I was waiting for Abbas' answer and wanted to let you know about it. Abbas didn't answer for almost two weeks. I wrote him again shortly before the New Year.
Because it may interest others, I report here somewhat about it.
The power grid does not work at the moment, the diesel generator had also given him problems in recent weeks. Abbas writes that he also had to be a master of the generator
About a week ago, a missile was shot down over his house. The fragments hit about 15m from his house.
He writes that he and his family are doing well.
About my 3.2 Signature he writes, that the thicker case of higher quality and all other components have arrived. Mounting has already started.
As soon as I know more, I will report here.
Because it may interest others, I report here somewhat about it.
The power grid does not work at the moment, the diesel generator had also given him problems in recent weeks. Abbas writes that he also had to be a master of the generator
About a week ago, a missile was shot down over his house. The fragments hit about 15m from his house.
He writes that he and his family are doing well.
About my 3.2 Signature he writes, that the thicker case of higher quality and all other components have arrived. Mounting has already started.
As soon as I know more, I will report here.
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