How Good is the DDDAC-A Comparison with dcs Bartok, Mola Mola Tambaqui, and MSB Discrete and Prestige

I’ve enjoyed DDDACs in my own system since the kits were first released. I’ve built
DDDACs with one board, two boards and four boards and all have provided a great
amount of musical enjoyment and have never had a tiring sound. Of late I’ve built
versions with on board reclocking-Ian Canada and Kali principally-and also built in Pi
streamers.
The DAC kits have now been available for quite a few years. OK, the boards have
been upgraded, with built in Tent shunts and a bias module, and I’ve also
incorporated my own custom power supplies and valve output stages. But the years
have still gone by. So my question was: how does the DDDAC stack up against
some of the finest and much more expensive DACs now available and was I (or my
clients) missing out on a greater level of musical satisfaction.
In February this year I set out to listen to some of the best-rated DACs out there. My
sample encompassed dCS , Rockna, Mola Mola Tambaqui, and MSB Discrete and
Premier. At first I thought I would try and get them all at home for a week or so’s
trial. That quickly proved impossible, and I ended up buying a dCS Bartok, and
listening to the Rockna at a dealer’s. In truth if one of these had blown my mind in
terms of demonstrably better sound quality I would have bought. Of course, any of
those DACs is considerably more money than the DDDAC: my own versions fully
built with custom power supplies, tube output stage and built in Pi streamer cost
around £3.5k whereas the cheapest among this crop is the Mola Mola at £10k with
the others coming in from £16k to 29k.In other words: a considerable difference in
price.
My own DDDAC for comparison was a four board version with and without a built in
Pi streamer, with an Ian Canada Q3 reclocker and a Wave IO board on USB duties.
The MSB DACs, dCS Bartok and Mola Mola Tambaqui were evaluated by a group of
musical /audio friends whereas I heard the Rockna at a dealer’s. My home systems
are as follows: Cisco network switch followed by Uptone Audio Ether Regen switch.
RPI streamer with custom power supplies connected via i2s to DDDAC four board
NOS DAC. Innuos Zen Mini Mk3 and Innuos Phoenix Reclocker tested with both
DDDAC DAC and ESS9038pro based DAC both with tube output stages. DACs
connected directly to various amps or via my own Satchmo preamp inc. Modified
Ming Da 805 monoblocks, Radford sta 100 monoblocks, Mastersound 845 PSE
monoblocks. Speakers were Troels Gravesen Illuminator 4 built by Troels himself,
and JBL S2 9800s. Of my DACs, the DDDAC one is the most sophisticated with
separate analogue and digital choke power supplies. It also clearly trumps the ESS9038pro DAC in terms of bass performance, slam and overall musicality.
I am not presenting in depth reviews in the sense of detailed analysis of highs and lows etc. More the general listening impressions and any obvious faults or differences.

My listening experiences were as follows:
dcs Bartok
Close to the DDDACs performance on high res material, but quite inferior on
standard red book material. Strange artefact that a singer could be placed much

further back in the mix than on any of my DACs. Eg Joan Armatrading Walk Under
Ladders, her voice is very receded in the mix, whereas with my DACs the vocals are
correctly placed in front of the band. Internet Radio strangely limited (at that time:
may have changed with Apex?) to 320kbps which is a big disadvantage for me as I
listen to radio Paradise. Ethernet input inferior to USB using the Phoenix Reclocker.
Overall, a reasonable buy for a one box solution at its secondhand price of circa
£7,000.
Mola Mola Tambaqui
A real enigma this DAC. It could sound excellent with some material but truly awful
with other material. The dealer stated it was all working correctly so I can only put it
down to its processing / performance.
MSB Discrete
Of all the DACs I tried, this DAC was one that I could happily live with that gave very
similar performance to the DDDAC. Everything I threw at it came out as music in the same way as the DDDAC. The minus points for me are cost-£16k for the
network and USB addition-and the on all the time power supplies. To turn off the
psu, you have to reach behind the unit which is not practical in my set up.
MSB Premier
Reasonable performance overall buy much more ‘hi fi’ than the organic sound of the
Discrete and DDDAC. At nearly £30k it is way above what I would pay for any DAC.
Rockna Wavedream Balanced SE
I heard this DAC at a dealers using their system. Expensive KT88 valve amplifier, my
own Satchmo preamp, and a £20k streamer feeding the DAC. The DAC was very
unimpressive in NOS mode. Using its upsampling options gave some very strange
results. Eg Leonard Cohen Live in Dublin. Leonard always has a chesty voice but
with this DAC it sounded like he had a severe chest infection. The dealer had set up
some electrostatic speakers a long way into the room and the soundstage was well
behind the speakers. Difficult to state what the effects of the system were but I heard
nothing to want to spend more time with this £16k DAC.

Overall Conclusions
I heard nothing from any of these DACs that made me think I was missing out sound
quality wise over the DDDAC. In fact, the only DAC that I could live with and enjoy
the same /similar sound quality was the MSB Premier with its drawback of price and
always on PSU. Given that that DAC is £16k I’m more than happy with my DDDAC. I
build and sell the same model at around £3,500 so it is exceptional value for the
resulting sound quality. I also heard nothing from expensive streamers that made me
think they offer superior results to an RPI 4 with custom power supplies feeding an
Ian Canada FiFIPI reclocker.

There also seems to be something in the way upsampling DACs change the mix within music. ASR and others show that all these DACs have vanishingly low measured distortion yet there is clearly some quite major changes being made to the way music is presented.

Update

So having tested my previous DDDAC against the Mola Mola Tambaqui, dCS Bartok, MSB Discrete and Premier, Rockna Wavedream Signature DACs and finding that non could best it, I decided to build my own signature DDDAC. As I have recently moved to 100db sensitive Klipsch Cornwall speakers I decided to use the Sowter transformers as output devices. So the spec of my latest DAC is:

 

-Sowter output transformers

-Ian Canada FiFOPi Q7

-Ian Canada Supercapcitor Pi psu

-RPI4

-5 separate power supplies using New Class D regulators

-Choke input psu for the DAC analogue side

-Choke psu for the DAC digital side

-Organic polymer caps on the digital side both for decoupling and small bypass caps

-New Class D regs for the DAC boards, main digital regulator and the two relating to the shift register and Tent module

-Elna Silmic caps for the analogue side

And how does all this sound? I can honestly say the DAC has exceed my wildest expectations. There is absolutely no digital artefact and reverb and bass response are right up there with the finest analogue devices. I’m particularly surprised by the SPDIF input. This has always seemed the poor relation of my other builds but with these latest mods it’s sound is well up there with the Pi streamer sound.

 

As wella s my DAC shoot out above, I listened to many expensive streamers-and tried a few via HDMI i2s but none has equalled the Pi4 with the Q7 and decent power supplies. This DAC can now compete or beat the very best up to many thousands of pounds in price. The MSB Prestige above is £29.5k alone. 

Radford STA 100 Built As Monoblocks

I took a week off my regular audio work to build myself a Radford sta100 as a pair of monoblocks. These are signature amps with a lot of foo inside including Black gate capacitors and Audyn true copper caps. They are point to point wired and the transformers are specced to take KT150s or KT120s, both of which thrive off the high HT of 630v and high screen voltage. The KT120s sound much better to my ears, suiting the output transformers better.

So how do they sound? I’m fortunate enough to own a pair of Silvercore 833 monoblocks and my wife has a pair of Mastersound 845 monoblocks and this amp shows both of these a clean pair of heels. It’s got effortless scale and majesty, and sounds very sweet across the whole frequency range. I’d like to thank Will at Radford Revival for help and advice along the way and for speccing and supplying the transformer sets. The output transformers are rated at 100 watts continuous output. Now here’s a pair of amps that will drive any Tannoys! I’m open to building some more of these or even a stereo version……

These amps are now for sale at £3,500 collection from London.

AD Audio DDDAC Review

Here’s a review of recent build of a DDDAC with two DAC boards, valve output stage and built in RPI4 streamer. Inputs were optical, AES, SPDIF and USB and outputs were phono and XLR /AES. It uses the latest version of my valve output stage with choke regulated power supply and DC regulated heaters. Switching between inputs is digital.

‘I approached David to build me a dddac based DAC with valve outputs and a Raspberry PI streamer built in. David patiently listened to what I was looking for and offered great advice. He is very flexible around requirements with the customer at the heart of all his suggestions.

David is a skilled engineer who clearly takes great pride in his work, He uses the finest components and ensures the unit is thoroughly tested before release to the customer.

The result is I have a DAC that is – in a word – exceptional. It oozes detail but is not in the least bit fatiguing. It has added bottom end weight and grip; and better separation and clarity, and is a joy to listen to. The Volumio interface on the PI works beautifully and Qobuz sounds great too, particularly their hi-res recordings

I had much preferred listening to vinyl for the last few years but now have a DAC that has seen me regularly returning to my CD racks and FLAC files. This DAC is very analogue sounding!

It has given me an appreciation for real high-end at a sensible price.

AD Audio comes highly recommended!

Matt’

Satchmo Preamp Balanced Version

Here is a balanced version of the Satchmo built for a client. I used an off the shelf case rather than my usual custom Italian ones.

The client provided some great feedback:

‘Hi David, 
Just to let you know that the buffer stage arrived safe and sound. I set it up last night and let it warm up for ten minutes, and then me and my girlfriend ended up listening through to the midnight hour. 
What an incredible piece of kit! Where do I start? 
Well, the combo of the Leema Elements and the Bel Canto Ref500S was already a good one; but very clinical in its combined nature. The introduction of the buffer stage has brought much more to the party than I’d ever have imagined. 
Firstly, there’s that bass! Weighty, warm, powerful, clean and so easy to follow in the mix. This was the combo’s biggest failing to my ears; it was too lean before, but not now. It feels like the bass I got from my Arcam A85 amp, but so very much more – and so much cleaner and smoother. 
Then there’s the vocals; simply astounding. The Reiver Edingdales were already exception in the vocal band, serving them up right in the middle of the room. But now the voices are even clearer, erringly so on some tracks. And they’re so much clearer too. 
Prior to the buffer going in, the combo have a tendency to express sibilance on some recordings, so much so that I had to back off the ribbons on the Edingdales (thankfully Colin put an L-Pad resistor on each speaker). Well, back up to 0dB they went. The sibilance is gone, but the treble crispness remains, and in fact has become even more detailed! 
What has really struck me though is the ultra-short transients; the clicks and snaps and ticks that embellish so much of today’s electronic music just sound so clean and tight that it’s hard to believe they were missing in the first place. There’s just so much more of everything. Even if the system is playing in the lounge whilst I work in the office, I can hear so much more – and then there’s the bass again. I had to fiddle with the subwoofer controls slightly, raising (oddly) the cut off frequency, and that’s made the low mid bass just perfect. 
Also it looks really cool standing on its own acrylic plinth and AIEX resonance absorbers. 
So I thank you for your fine work sir, an absolute triumph. There’s everything to love about the improvement it’s brought, and not a single thing that’s diminished in the system. Perfect and worth absolutely every penny. 
On the valves, I’m going to keep a couple of sets of 6SL7s to hand. I assume that I can use any 6SL7 or 6SL7GT? Also I have the potential to buy a highly regarded matched pair of RCA 5691 Red Base NOS valves. I take it that I would be fine with those too? I’ve been scouring the web for informative reviews on 6SL7s so I’m going to do a bit of tube rolling, although what I actually expect to improve I have no idea! 
Feel free to share this text on the internet and your website as appropriate. 
With best regards and thanks, 
Rob. ‘

AD Audio ESS9038pro DAC with valve output stage

Here is my latest DAC, based on the ESS Sabre 9038pro chip and with a single-ended valve (tube) output stage. The DAC has remote controlled lossless volume control, and an array of switchable filter options including oversampling on/off. The DAC accepts SPDIF and USB inputs. Sampling rates are accepted up to 32 bit/384khz and there is integrated re-clocking with a high precision, ultra low phase noise clock. 

Audio Innovations s500-the final frontier

I’d been wanting to do this for a long time. Upgrade an AI 500 by converting to a choke power supply along with rewiring, capacitor and resistor upgrades, and upgraded selector switch and volume pot.

Instead of mounting the components in a separate case a la Border Patrol, I mounted the choke on the rear of the case. The sound quality is the best yet. While I don’t have a Border Control power supply for direct comparison this version is right up there, or maybe even better!

A Strange Looking Box……..

 

This strange looking box came to me for some upgrades. So, what is it? It’s an auto former, like one half of a transformer, which is used instead of a potentiometer or attenuator to control volume. I haven’t experienced one of these and was very keen to hear it in my system. I hooked it up and was gobsmacked by the performance-huge soundstage, massive attack, and much more ambience audible compared to my active preamp with Khozmo stepped ladder attenuator.

Based on this experiment I then hooked it up to my own built Satchmo preamp, using it as a volume control, and got another gain in sound quality. I can honestly say that used actively with my preamp as an active device I have never heard such sound quality through my system and I’ve had preamps costing up to £20k through my workshop from the likes of Conrad Johnson and Audio research. Needless to say I’ve ordered an auto former for myself and already have an order for a preamp using one from a client.

The upgrades I did on this magic box were rewiring with solid silver wire and installation of solid silver Audio Note phono sockets in place of the previously fitted captive leads.