Simon Price
A run down from ten to one of the best HiFi DACs I’ve tried including products from brands like PS Audio, Chord Electronics, RME, and dCS. These are all ones I’ve tried at home.
DACs make or break the sound of HiFi from their jitter handling capabilities, the qualities of the power supplies used, the analogue output stages, and the digital conversion chip or process. Contrary to views they are not important and any ‘good measuring’ one will do, anyone who has reviewed HiFi or has decent experience of HiFi DACs, knows that they can sound wildly different.
In reviewing DACs you tend to be looking at assessing detail, soundstage depth and width, bass/treble balance, mid range quality and dynamics – both loud and soft levels, and speed of intonation. How fast the music starts and stops. More than such simple expressions and you have florid and OTT language idioms which may look cool, but essentially they don’t help convey a message in simple language terms – essentially non-pretentiousness. A school sports teacher once told me – KISS : Keep it simple Stupid, and it may be an overused term, but there is no mundanity to the simple conveying of what products do whilst being enthusiastic, with strong production values. Also my attitude is HiFi should appeal to more, whilst serving existing Audiophiles, not the few?
Further I always think that a HiFi review that explains in easy terms, helps more people than not, because add in too many different descriptives in explaining sound quality and you are left confused as to USP and main characteristics. Every manufacturer wants this to come across (or should) and every consumer certainly does.
Please let me know what products you have tried these DACs against in the YouTube comments. Do you agree, why so, if not why not? I’m sure this will help others too. Once again, as always, thanks for watching!
Brands Featured in this Film;
Musical Fidelity – website here
dCS – website here
Chord Electronics – website here
Cyrus Audio – website here
PS Audio – website here
Denafrips – website here
RME – website here
Mytek – Website here
A Guide to DACs? watch my other film….
