The NOS Dac

bottleneck

bottleneck

talks a load of rubbish
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Hi

Thought I'd start a NOS Dac thread.

There are many NOS dac's on the market.

* What makes a good NOS Dac?
* Which NOS Dac's have the best chips/power supplies etc?
* What's the ultimate NOS Dac? Is it the 47 Labs one? If so, what makes it so special?
* What's the closest clone to the 47 labs Nos Dac?
* Anybody found another DAC in the NOS Dac price range that they prefer? (e.g. sub £400 I'd say)


NB
If you just dont like NOS dacs ..fine.. but not for this thread thanks very much indeedy!
 
The AMR CD player is a NOS DAC in its main mode. Best I have heard form a NOS DAC. I usually don't like them much though.... all sloppy sounding. The TDA1541 is arguably the best DAC chip for NOS DACs. Many use the TDA1543 which is nothing like as good, and was designed to be as cheap as possible.
 
If I may ask, why do you think you want a NOS DAC? There are good NOS DACs and good oversampling DACS. Neither topology guarantees anything. Perhaps it would work better to simply describe the sound you are after.

DIY Hi-Fi Supply make good stuff if the Django is anything to go by. So I'd expect quality.
 
The AMR is superb and as Simon says an extremely good implementation of NOS.

A version of that machine in a smaller, simpler box is what we need. So if TL is looking in....
 
LBR - ''non over sampling'' - basically a stripped to basics DAC, I would guess pioneered by companies like Audionote and 47 labs.

Proponents say it strips away artifice and provides a more true to nature sound.
 
I borrowed an AMR CD77 for a month with a view to representing it, I cannot recommend it, anyone considering it should audition it at home against some other machines.
 
coops said:
I borrowed an AMR CD77 for a month with a view to representing it, I cannot recommend it, anyone considering it should audition it at home against some other machines.
Click to expand...

If I may say so, that's rather unhelpful - like saying that you can't recommend Imperial Leather soap, without any qualification whatsoever. What did you not like about it, and under what conditions etc did you appraise it? What are your references against which to assess such equipment?
 
I listened to maybe 30-40 dacs and cdps ( and continue to ) in an effort to try and understand the curent stsate of play all at home and all in the same system, everything from a £100 beresford to a £33k DCS Scarlatti, the AMR was frankly poor.
 
LiloLee said:
Simon

What do you mean by sloppy?
I really enjoy the relaxed nature of NOS DAC's. Much better than the inyurface Chord DAC64 which is a love/hate affair.
Click to expand...

To me most of them sound sloppy and ill-defined. When music gets complex they fall apart... I wouldn't want to play any pop, or nu-metal or such like on them.

I also agree that the DAC64 is a tad harsh and I wouldn't want one, though perhaps an exciting listen. In my experience you can have the well defined sound of an oversampling DAC without any grityness or 'digititus' (unless its on the recording) if you pay careful attention to the analog side of things and the PSU. Dare I say it, I think my modified Behringer stuff is a good example of getting the good parts of both sounds.

I have a hunch that the thing neither of us like about the DAC 64 is noise from the switchmode PSU.

Then again the majority of NOS DACs are cheap, so it might be all an unfair conclusion on my part. The AMR sounds pretty good to me, and not that sloppy, though quite warm.
 
I recently started using a Monica 3 from diyparadise which is a Philips 1545 based board.
According to this it does some reclocking as well.

I'm liking it; the Cyrus CD6 which is now just doing transport duties always had a slightly annoying top end - depending what it was partnered with this was more or less of a problem. I struggle to find anything sloppy about it (Monica) but then I'd probably struggle with nu-metal as well.
Where it really scores for me is in the soprano and especially counter tenor range. Through various system incarnations and various rooms there has been a tendency to ring - to a one noteness in the top ranges of these voices. That has now been replaced by much more tonal colour; I hesitate to use the phrase but timbral accuracy is much improved. The caveat is that I also replaced a Cyrus C6 (or at least the power amp end, it's still in use as a pre) with a Quad 909. Prior to the switch the differences were marginal; easily identifiable now.
 
I did some extensive redesigning of a NOS Dac TDA1541a about 3 years ago which has only recently been retired.
All the work was around the power supply and output stage. 2 huge VH Audio Teflon caps on the output and a silent switch mode PSU. This was hooked up to a CD12, I'd had a DAC 64 attached and didn't like it much a bit harsh and clinical. THe DAC 64 performed very well, mid range excellent, vocals nice and smooth, huge soundstage, no problem with instrument separation. The only thing I found is the low frequencys tended to lack a little punch. Try as I might I couldn't change this.
It was a lot of fun building it (though I could've probably bought a very nice DAC for what I spent on the components!)
 
I have a Consonance CD2.2 Linear which incorporates a DAC that is switchable between NOS and 2x OS. I keep it on the NOS setting as I tend to prefer its more natural bass response over the slightly more detailed but less bass-oriented OS setting.

This is the second-best CDP I have ever owned (after a Krell KA-250 which unfortunately went kaput - bass response from this CDP was phenomenal). If you want the best of both worlds I would say this is the way to go.
 

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