Here is my usual photostory of Pacific Northwest Audio Society, hosting the honorable Philip O Hanlon demonstrating the Merging Technologies, NADAC DAC:
http://nadac.merging.com/
The meeting was at one of our beautiful little waterfront towns, Kirkland. I came early so that I could hog the center seat in the front row and did exactly that!
The set up is the club's standard system which is donated by our own Gary Koh of Genesis:
The NADAC is the white box on top. It is driving a Genesis Class-D amp directly acting as both pre-amp and DAC.
The room is large and bare. A bit of absorption occurs with the carpets on the floor.
The master of ceremonies of course was Philip and this picture captures it all:
He was dressed in Southern California Chic which means any color you wear is OK as long as it is black!
Philip had gone as far as wearing black bowtie. He looked sharp.
Going past the looks, Phillip was a delight to listen to. Unassuming, non-religious (about formats), absolutely knowledgeable about the music he was playing, and with a relaxed, fun attitude that put a smile on my face. He could not leave a more positive impression with me.
As Bruce said, he started with handing out CDs of what we are about to hear which is one of the best thing anyone doing demos can do. While I also used Google to look up songs, having the original music to bring home and listen was a wonderful surprise. This man knows how to take care of audiophiles!
The starting track was from a live unreleased album of Suzanne Vega in Tokyo. Track name is Small Blue Thing. As a big fan of her, it was great to see Phillip open with that.
Most of the content played were from analog captures, mostly LPs but some tape too. The former was the case in comparing a PCM at 24/186 against 2X DSD captured from Steve's system. Two completely different turntables and phono amps were used so this is not a format comparison and philip was very open with that.
I found the PCM version lacking in fidelity. Vocal (level) balance did not seem right to me. The capture from Steve's system was better for sure but in both cases I was left empty. It didn't sound as good an analog source, nor did it sound like good digital. There was a clear signature of an analog source with artifacts (to these rusty ears) with sharply defined differences between the two analog setups. The DAC's job here was done in transparently and easily demonstrating that.
Another comparison was again DSD versus PCM. But they were downloads from different sites and according to Bruce, they were sourced from different analog sources/mixes.
The last set of comparisons were as Bruce mentioned. These were captures starting from 44.1 going up to 192 Khz using Pacific Microsonic's Model 2 ADC. My ears would focus on the sound in the room as this is the second time I have been there. What difference there were in sample rates was lost on me. The room and the sound reproduced was way more noticeable to me than differences in source sampling. Bruce and Gary are used to that room and system far more than me and can listen past it. I could not. So I defer to their evaluations.
I will say that Keith Johnson had strong preference for multiples of 44.1 Khz sampling. His point was simple and valid: since all content winds up on CD/online, the final sample rate there is always 44.1 Khz. So if you want to produce high-res versions of the same in capture, why not use multiples of that to keep the resampling easier and more accurate (not as much of an issue these days with software resamplers). So maybe PM2 was designed to play better in 44.1 Khz multiples than 48 Khz.
The NADAC has a very nice industrial design that is attractive but not over the top:
The amp is the black box below the Oppo player:
Playing in that room, it was relatively easy to get it to clip and it did that on the left channel more although I heard it on both. This was a distraction for me as every peak had a bit of static. The amp is discontinued and is rated at 130 watts. In such a large room with speakers in that relatively small cabinet means one needs lots of juice.
As always I am a playlist thief and this was not an exception:
NADAC can be configured with up to 8 channels neatly laid out in the back:
Cables were provided by Gary/Club.
The Ethernet input uses XLR connection. It was driven point to point from the Mac laptop (i.e, no router/switch in the middle). Protocol used over Ethernet is Ravenna.
Multiple devices can connect simultaneously to it and push content to it.
Overall it was a great night, meeting friends and getting to shake hands with Phillip in person. Heard good music. As to the DAC, well, it is a DAC
. It produced what it was told to do, revealing small differences between sources with authority. As for the various shoot outs, no conclusions could be drawn. FWIW, the audience picked 2X DSD as the best followed closely by 24/186 PCM and 1X DSD a distant third. I was not smart enough or have good enough hearing to be able to assert that.
The meeting was fun and worth the four drive roundtrip for sure. Look forward to meeting Phillip again in the future. Merging is lucky to have him as their representative for their product....
