This has been brewing for some time. Finally this past Saturday a few forum members and a mutual friend managed to get together to put the uDSD through its paces in the company of other esteemed DACs. I came up with the idea, as I've traditionally struggled to hear huge DAC differences (tin ears I guess), and decided to arrange a get together with mates that have DAC experience in order to do a group-based informal test between different DACs.
We didn't take ourselves too seriously and did not even consider blind testing or matching volume levels quantitatively. Rather we tried to keep things simple. The idea was to firstly have fun, and secondly to discuss differences that we picked-up (or didn't).
Reviewers included Eben, JohanHP, Veilinsa, Qwerty and our friend Brian. We decided to only test the DACs on a single system, which consisted of a NAD S300 integrated amp (Gryphon built), Eminent Technology LFT-16 speakers, a Dell Laptop with VLC Media Player and cheap cables. The DAC contenders were:
uDSD - NuPrime Audio
ObjectiveDAC (ODAC) - JDS Labs (NwAvGuy design)
Gungnir DAC - Schiit Audio
Digital Link III DAC (with Cullen stage III mods) - PS Audio
Each of us brought a selection of recordings mainly in FLAC, but also in WAV and MP3 format. We typically listened to a selection of about five tracks on one DAC and then selected one or two of these for comparison on the other DACs . We specifically listened to Nightwish's Imaginaerum track, on their Imaginaerum album, which proved to be good for comparisons. Up to Saturday I have not used a separate DAC in months and have exclusively been listening to CDs, radio and LPs.
To the best of my knowledge, only the uDSD has DSD functionality, but DSD capabilities were not tested.
The two USB powered DACS, the uDSD and ODAC, are in the same price bracket, but the latter lacks a headphone amp option. The ODAC also only has a single 3.5mm analog output jack, compared to the uDSD's great looking RCA analog outputs and Coaxial S/PDIF output. The uDSD unit is definitely the smarter looking option of the two and is also more flexible, but sonically it is harder to chose a favourite. Both sound wonderful! The ODAC is more musical, meaning that to my ears it presented the mids and highs overall better compared to the uDSD. The uDSD, however, revealed more detail (just a bit) and definitely had better bass (even I could hear this difference clearly). So it is a tough choice. The ODAC surprised me and for long listening sessions I think I would prefer it, but it means that I will have to use a separate headphone amp or use it in my main setup. I must stress that both are very good and I'm definitely keeping both as I have two desktop setups (home and away offices). The uDSD gives me more options in terms of mobility (music on the road) and convenience, and taking up less space on my desk (In a shared office it may look a bit silly to have a separate headphone amp and a separate DAC, but a small integrated unit like the uDSD is discreet enough that fewer people will enquire about it).
A question that remains is how does the uDSD and ODAC compare to more expensive DACS that are not USB powered? In comes the Gungnir and the DL III DACs, both contained balanced outputs, but were only used through their analog RCA outputs. The answer is that the two smaller units did not embarrass themselves, not at all! Both of the bigger DACs were better, as was expected, and their improvements mainly included the presentation of background sounds and details more clearly, especially in more complex compositions. I suspect this is what is referred to as 'colouring-in the sound stage'? Image separation was also better on the bigger boys, but this took me a while to identify. I'm sure I could point out more differences if I continue to listened to the different options for longer. These differences however become trivial in my opinion.
The truth is I would probably not have known of many of the improvements had I not listened to the bigger and more expensive DACs. They are four to five times more expensive than the uDSD and ODAC units. I believe that some of the other guys present, with more experience and better context, heard bigger differences. They will tell you more about it.
Personally I could live with any of these DACs, especially in a desktop setup. The comparison also answered another question for me: I now know that I will hang on to the PS Audio DAC in my main setup after being tempted to sell it over the last year or so.
In conclusion, the uDSD DAC is excellent value for money, there is no buyers remorse and I continue to look forward to opportunities to listen to it. These are telltale signs of a good buy in my opinion.
We didn't take ourselves too seriously and did not even consider blind testing or matching volume levels quantitatively. Rather we tried to keep things simple. The idea was to firstly have fun, and secondly to discuss differences that we picked-up (or didn't).
Reviewers included Eben, JohanHP, Veilinsa, Qwerty and our friend Brian. We decided to only test the DACs on a single system, which consisted of a NAD S300 integrated amp (Gryphon built), Eminent Technology LFT-16 speakers, a Dell Laptop with VLC Media Player and cheap cables. The DAC contenders were:
uDSD - NuPrime Audio
ObjectiveDAC (ODAC) - JDS Labs (NwAvGuy design)
Gungnir DAC - Schiit Audio
Digital Link III DAC (with Cullen stage III mods) - PS Audio
Each of us brought a selection of recordings mainly in FLAC, but also in WAV and MP3 format. We typically listened to a selection of about five tracks on one DAC and then selected one or two of these for comparison on the other DACs . We specifically listened to Nightwish's Imaginaerum track, on their Imaginaerum album, which proved to be good for comparisons. Up to Saturday I have not used a separate DAC in months and have exclusively been listening to CDs, radio and LPs.
To the best of my knowledge, only the uDSD has DSD functionality, but DSD capabilities were not tested.
The two USB powered DACS, the uDSD and ODAC, are in the same price bracket, but the latter lacks a headphone amp option. The ODAC also only has a single 3.5mm analog output jack, compared to the uDSD's great looking RCA analog outputs and Coaxial S/PDIF output. The uDSD unit is definitely the smarter looking option of the two and is also more flexible, but sonically it is harder to chose a favourite. Both sound wonderful! The ODAC is more musical, meaning that to my ears it presented the mids and highs overall better compared to the uDSD. The uDSD, however, revealed more detail (just a bit) and definitely had better bass (even I could hear this difference clearly). So it is a tough choice. The ODAC surprised me and for long listening sessions I think I would prefer it, but it means that I will have to use a separate headphone amp or use it in my main setup. I must stress that both are very good and I'm definitely keeping both as I have two desktop setups (home and away offices). The uDSD gives me more options in terms of mobility (music on the road) and convenience, and taking up less space on my desk (In a shared office it may look a bit silly to have a separate headphone amp and a separate DAC, but a small integrated unit like the uDSD is discreet enough that fewer people will enquire about it).
A question that remains is how does the uDSD and ODAC compare to more expensive DACS that are not USB powered? In comes the Gungnir and the DL III DACs, both contained balanced outputs, but were only used through their analog RCA outputs. The answer is that the two smaller units did not embarrass themselves, not at all! Both of the bigger DACs were better, as was expected, and their improvements mainly included the presentation of background sounds and details more clearly, especially in more complex compositions. I suspect this is what is referred to as 'colouring-in the sound stage'? Image separation was also better on the bigger boys, but this took me a while to identify. I'm sure I could point out more differences if I continue to listened to the different options for longer. These differences however become trivial in my opinion.
The truth is I would probably not have known of many of the improvements had I not listened to the bigger and more expensive DACs. They are four to five times more expensive than the uDSD and ODAC units. I believe that some of the other guys present, with more experience and better context, heard bigger differences. They will tell you more about it.
Personally I could live with any of these DACs, especially in a desktop setup. The comparison also answered another question for me: I now know that I will hang on to the PS Audio DAC in my main setup after being tempted to sell it over the last year or so.
In conclusion, the uDSD DAC is excellent value for money, there is no buyers remorse and I continue to look forward to opportunities to listen to it. These are telltale signs of a good buy in my opinion.
