Emm labs DA2 v2 upgrade
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Another significant observations from Tom Lye (February 2019 Enjoy the Music.com World Premiere Review! Triangle Art TA-200M
class A Monoblock Power Amplifiers, by Tom Lyle. $73, 000 per pair): "When listening to digital in this system, the majority of the time it was through my computer-based music server which is connected via a Furutech USB cable to an EMM Labs DA2 digital-to-analog converter. ... When I played my favorites I had a sonic epiphany of sorts which each album, which included but was not limited to selections such the records Genesis Selling England By The Pound pressed by Classic Records, a Japanese pressing of Kraftwerk's The Man Machine, an early 1960s RCA pressing of Poulenc's Concerto For Organ, Strings And Timpani, the amazing Classic Records pressing of Led Zeppelin III, and the DSD (SACD) files of Dead Can Dance Towards The Within and Charles Mingus The Saint And The Sinner Lady. When I played them what I heard of course was music that I've probably played hundreds of times before. But when attempting to analyze what I've heard using familiar audiophile terms, words failed me. First of all, the music was quite distracting. In a good way. And so, it was either difficult to take many notes or I would just forget to take them until the album or the side of the record was finished. It was also a bit funny, because every time I'd scribble some traits of the music into my notebook, I'd sometimes add phrases such as "on steroids". "The music coming through the TA-200M monoblocks was so enveloping, it was like it produced a soundstage on steroids". This is not standard audiophile terminology, at least not as far as I'm concerned, and so I'm not sure how much help that would have been in understanding what I heard when I had these monoblocks were in my system. The best I can do is characterize the sound of the TA-200M monoblocks as if they were high powered tube amplifiers without any of the disadvantages of tubes. These Triangle Art amps have the dynamic distance of tube amps, each instrument, each sound, and each group of instruments and sounds were separated from the others, realistically scaled, placed in different sections of a soundstage that filled my room. In addition to this spectacular characteristic, I can't imagine getting anywhere near this kind of tight, very pitch specific, thunderingly deep bass out of any tube amp no matter how powerful it is, especially when using electrostatic speakers that have challenging impedance characteristics. No matter how loud the volume, the Triangle Art TA-200M monoblocks never complained. I heard no overload whatsoever. I thought 200 Watts might not be enough power for my rather large electrostatic speakers. It was plenty. ... As I said above, I can see why some purchase amplifiers at this price level if they sound anywhere as good as the Triangle Art TA-200M Class A monoblock power amplifiers. They do not simply sound "good", they reproduce music with the most uncolored, transparent, and powerful sound that I've ever heard in my system.
class A Monoblock Power Amplifiers, by Tom Lyle. $73, 000 per pair): "When listening to digital in this system, the majority of the time it was through my computer-based music server which is connected via a Furutech USB cable to an EMM Labs DA2 digital-to-analog converter. ... When I played my favorites I had a sonic epiphany of sorts which each album, which included but was not limited to selections such the records Genesis Selling England By The Pound pressed by Classic Records, a Japanese pressing of Kraftwerk's The Man Machine, an early 1960s RCA pressing of Poulenc's Concerto For Organ, Strings And Timpani, the amazing Classic Records pressing of Led Zeppelin III, and the DSD (SACD) files of Dead Can Dance Towards The Within and Charles Mingus The Saint And The Sinner Lady. When I played them what I heard of course was music that I've probably played hundreds of times before. But when attempting to analyze what I've heard using familiar audiophile terms, words failed me. First of all, the music was quite distracting. In a good way. And so, it was either difficult to take many notes or I would just forget to take them until the album or the side of the record was finished. It was also a bit funny, because every time I'd scribble some traits of the music into my notebook, I'd sometimes add phrases such as "on steroids". "The music coming through the TA-200M monoblocks was so enveloping, it was like it produced a soundstage on steroids". This is not standard audiophile terminology, at least not as far as I'm concerned, and so I'm not sure how much help that would have been in understanding what I heard when I had these monoblocks were in my system. The best I can do is characterize the sound of the TA-200M monoblocks as if they were high powered tube amplifiers without any of the disadvantages of tubes. These Triangle Art amps have the dynamic distance of tube amps, each instrument, each sound, and each group of instruments and sounds were separated from the others, realistically scaled, placed in different sections of a soundstage that filled my room. In addition to this spectacular characteristic, I can't imagine getting anywhere near this kind of tight, very pitch specific, thunderingly deep bass out of any tube amp no matter how powerful it is, especially when using electrostatic speakers that have challenging impedance characteristics. No matter how loud the volume, the Triangle Art TA-200M monoblocks never complained. I heard no overload whatsoever. I thought 200 Watts might not be enough power for my rather large electrostatic speakers. It was plenty. ... As I said above, I can see why some purchase amplifiers at this price level if they sound anywhere as good as the Triangle Art TA-200M Class A monoblock power amplifiers. They do not simply sound "good", they reproduce music with the most uncolored, transparent, and powerful sound that I've ever heard in my system.
Hi all,
The March 2019 issue of Stereophile include a review of the EMM Labs DV2 (a DA2 + Volume Control) by Jason Victor Serinus. He concludes: "Of all the DACs I've heard in my reference system [The dCS Vivaldi DAC, dCS Rossini DAC, CH Precision I1 Universal Integrated Amplifier-DAC ($52,000), Aqua Acoustic Quality Aqua Formula xHD D/A processor, etc.] the EMM Labs DV2 delivered the smoothest, most naturally warm, most consistently engaging and non-fatiguing reproduction of music. Its image size, resolution, and bass were up there with the very best."
The March 2019 issue of Stereophile include a review of the EMM Labs DV2 (a DA2 + Volume Control) by Jason Victor Serinus. He concludes: "Of all the DACs I've heard in my reference system [The dCS Vivaldi DAC, dCS Rossini DAC, CH Precision I1 Universal Integrated Amplifier-DAC ($52,000), Aqua Acoustic Quality Aqua Formula xHD D/A processor, etc.] the EMM Labs DV2 delivered the smoothest, most naturally warm, most consistently engaging and non-fatiguing reproduction of music. Its image size, resolution, and bass were up there with the very best."
Some interesting points on DACs and external clocks by Ed Meitner https://www.stereophile.com/content/meitner-emm-dv2-dsd-mqa-digital-audio
QUOTE:
JVS: You don't believe in using an external word clock. Why?
EM: Because I think this is the most stupid thing I've ever heard in the audio business. That means you have a precision clock that you have to connect to a wire to connect to a DAC, when the clock should be straight away where it belongs, inside the DAC, beside the DAC chip, if there is such a thing—not through a cable in a different box. This is so idiotic, it's not even funny. It's a money grab.
JVS: I believe one of the arguments for an external clock is that it offers better shielding from power supplies, and will thus operate better.
EM: Yeah, especially with units [that] have a separate power supply. There's a lot of shielding there. The whole thing is funny.
MP: In our DACs, the reference clock is inside the product and an inherent part of the conversion circuitry. Anything that comes from the outside world, on whatever input we select, is buffered and reclocked, so we don't have to worry about the artifacts of an external clock. Everything is reclocked to our internal reference. That's what we mean by asynchronous clock design.
Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/meitner-emm-dv2-dsd-mqa-digital-audio#ZBM1F0sIfRFueLGH.99
QUOTE:
JVS: You don't believe in using an external word clock. Why?
EM: Because I think this is the most stupid thing I've ever heard in the audio business. That means you have a precision clock that you have to connect to a wire to connect to a DAC, when the clock should be straight away where it belongs, inside the DAC, beside the DAC chip, if there is such a thing—not through a cable in a different box. This is so idiotic, it's not even funny. It's a money grab.
JVS: I believe one of the arguments for an external clock is that it offers better shielding from power supplies, and will thus operate better.
EM: Yeah, especially with units [that] have a separate power supply. There's a lot of shielding there. The whole thing is funny.
MP: In our DACs, the reference clock is inside the product and an inherent part of the conversion circuitry. Anything that comes from the outside world, on whatever input we select, is buffered and reclocked, so we don't have to worry about the artifacts of an external clock. Everything is reclocked to our internal reference. That's what we mean by asynchronous clock design.
Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/meitner-emm-dv2-dsd-mqa-digital-audio#ZBM1F0sIfRFueLGH.99
Last edited:
Hi all, the review of the EMM Labs DV2 by JVS of Stereophile is now available online: https://www.stereophile.com/content/...2-da-processor
Of course he would say that.
Fact of the matter, the clock inside the DAC probably isn't the best out there & getting a better one could yield upgrades.
As for the power supply affecting the clock, I think it matters more that an external clock will have it's own clean linear power supply powering it vs having the DACs own power supply powering yet another component.
Of course Ed Meitner is right about clocks on that level of gear performance.
Probably ...you are referring to one of the best three DACs in the worldOf course he would say that.
Fact of the matter, the clock inside the DAC probably isn't the best out there & getting a better one could yield upgrades.
As for the power supply affecting the clock, I think it matters more that an external clock will have it's own clean linear power supply powering it vs having the DACs own power supply powering yet another component.
JVS of Stereophile (in the comment section of his review of the EMM Labs DV2) said: "I spent a huge amount of time with the DV2, which is now with me on loan to use in future reviews because I think it sounds so good. Because my best source for feeding it files is the Network Bridge, which doesn't have a USB out, I limit my files to 192 PCM or DSD64, and forego playing MQA."
Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/emm-labs-dv2-da-processor#hhBJXi1VkgI4UhqF.99
Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/emm-labs-dv2-da-processor#hhBJXi1VkgI4UhqF.99
Yes it’s a good review
Of course EMM LABS did actually used to have ability for external clocking and abandoned that approach
I own both versions
Both objective and subjective observations seem to bear out it is excellent ie the DA2 or DV2 which has MQA
I spoke to Sony Europe about their view on external clocks, they were unable to see a significant benefit in EMM Labs ability to externally clock over their internal clocks in their ADC s in dsd recordings despite the EMM Labs ADC ability to be externally clocked.
Of course EMM LABS did actually used to have ability for external clocking and abandoned that approach
I own both versions
Both objective and subjective observations seem to bear out it is excellent ie the DA2 or DV2 which has MQA
I spoke to Sony Europe about their view on external clocks, they were unable to see a significant benefit in EMM Labs ability to externally clock over their internal clocks in their ADC s in dsd recordings despite the EMM Labs ADC ability to be externally clocked.
Of course he would say that.
Fact of the matter, the clock inside the DAC probably isn't the best out there & getting a better one could yield upgrades.
With all due respect, don't you think Ed Meitner would know this if it were true? I don't think he builds his reference gear to a price point but is driven by performance. My guess is that he uses what he uses for reasons that are more than theoretical.
As for the power supply affecting the clock, I think it matters more that an external clock will have it's own clean linear power supply powering it vs having the DACs own power supply powering yet another component.
Again seems to me that Meitner does what he does for a reason. But perhaps I'm wrong and we may see power supply improvements in future iterations of his gear.
Whatever your thoughts about his gear, you gotta give the guy credit for having the balls to tell it like he sees it in his Stereophile interview! A wallflower, he is definitely not.
Hi folks,
I had recently upgraded my speakers to the new Magico M2. I had also changed my speaker cables to Ansuz Diamond. And the DA2, pre and power amps. are now supported by Ansuz DTC resonance control footers. The result of all these changes are amazing! My point is that the DA2 can still benefit from all the improvements made to one's sound system.
I had recently upgraded my speakers to the new Magico M2. I had also changed my speaker cables to Ansuz Diamond. And the DA2, pre and power amps. are now supported by Ansuz DTC resonance control footers. The result of all these changes are amazing! My point is that the DA2 can still benefit from all the improvements made to one's sound system.
Hi Mdp632,
1. Thank you
2. No, I am not aware of any firmware update to enable MQA, although I had read that there will be by the end of the year. They have yet to launch the streamer with MQA!
3. Currently, I am not into MQA because I listened exclusively to SACDs
My understanding is that a firmware update is near that will not only include MQA but the ability to handle native quad dsd files. Right now PCM conversion is often done as the DA2 cannot playback some quad dsd files in Roon or on NAS drives.
The NS1 does not have a USB output to connect to a DAC. They recommend the EMM Optilink/RS232 connection for the best result.
For current EMM transport owners they then suggested the AES connection.
So there goes sacd disc playback because their accompanied dac only has 1 optilink input. Clearly, emm labs has not properly thought this through when designing this NS1. Not offering an USB output on this product gives pause to contemplating and could be a potential deal breaker.
For current EMM transport owners they then suggested the AES connection.
So there goes sacd disc playback because their accompanied dac only has 1 optilink input. Clearly, emm labs has not properly thought this through when designing this NS1. Not offering an USB output on this product gives pause to contemplating and could be a potential deal breaker.
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