what lech thinks
Just thought I would put a post up now I have had a good chance to listen to the killerdac. I didn't want to post anything straight off the bat as I really wanted to give it a good listen before casting an opinion which may (or may not) be taken onboard by others.
The one that was played at the shootout was built for me and is partnered with a highly modded marantz cd94 running i2s bus directly into the dac (ie NOS). The DAC I got is the 'high end, fully tweaked' version of the killerDAC as I would much rather rely on Stevens obvious expertise than trust myself with a mad-dog ebay account and a pair of pliers.
Steven, and the people helping him in his craft, are absolutely lovely to deal with. Steven is a gentlemen and a scholar who has both an immense understanding of music and a wealth of practical knowledge in getting the absolute best out of his units. The type of knowledge he has only comes from neverending testing, evaluating and listening of a myriad of different combination's of parts to get something that performs spectacularly as a whole. All through the process, Steven was extremely generous with his time and knowledge. Hats off for an amazing amount of knowledge and a simply wonderful and inspiring way of imparting it to others around him. A true music lover through and through.
What I asked for:
I am sick of cd. I listen to them all the time and while they are marginally better than what I can achieve from my HTPC via lossless and a tweaked soundcard, it still is just not up with what I have heard from turntables and much more expensive Cd players. Turntables "for me" just don't seem a smart solution to reach the next level. I can understand the love that comes with the process and the pride many people take in vinyl, the sound quality certainly deserves the fuss, but it is not for me. I hate the pops/crackles as that alone removes the analog and resolution benefit. The sheer amount of work to get the most out of them just seems prohibitive to me. Just to clarify, I have heard some spectacular sounding turntables along the way including the amazing demo setup at SGR (incredible!), but it is horses for courses and I still hold (perhaps naively) to the idea that digital can work if its given enough love.
I asked Steven, many times (heh), for a 'no compromises' approach to building my killerdac. I wanted the best parts, the best connections and if a bare wire was better than a socket/plug, I wanted that too. I wanted to see exactly what I could get out of this unit to save me going the turntable route for some of the analog goodness. Steven was very clear that this would take some time to source parts etc and that was fine as I had things on my end to sort out too and was definitely in no rush. This is why it was used for the shootout as with little notice, it would have been difficult to have one ready to go. A long story short, Friday afternoon it arrived with much anticipation and thanks to Stevens help, It was all up and running in very short order.
Build Quality:
The DAC was supplied in was a very nice rackmountable case which looked much sleeker than I thought it would. Definitely happy to have that on the shelf. When I opened the case to take a peek inside, and to remove some additional internal packing protection (really nice touch), I was blown away with how neat Steven and Pauls work is. There was simply not a wire out of place. Everything was neatly and securely positioned inside the case with nearly all the wiring run out of sight. Very impressive. The layout of the major items was very good. Easy to get in and do things if needed with no clutter. Every part in this DAC simply reeks of quality. This was indeed the no compromises approach I had asked for!
Keep in mind I was not fussed on cases and instead wanted something more industrial. Flemo made a beautiful timber case for his one which just looks gorgeous but for me, this works extremely well.
Getting it plugged in and ready for use:
Plugging in and turning the DAC on is painless thanks to the standard power switch at the back of the unit, similar to just about every other piece of equipment I have. Wiring up the I2s bus from the marantz was a piece of cake thanks to Stevens detailed labelling and the whole thing was ready to roll in minutes.
As a note when turning it on, something strange happened which had me worried for a while. The unit was dead quiet, no tubes getting whipped into action, no clicks hums or anything out of sorts, just a gentle warmup glow from the tube heaters. A little bit different from some of the tube gear I've had in the past where turning it on was a light dimming experience and felt like a rough downgear into 1st
So. How does it sound?
It's been a long time since I have enjoyed music like I have this weekend. I have had the DAC playing cd after cd (with the exception of the grand final - eyes rolling) with some of them getting a repeat cycle pretty much all weekend. By about lunchtime Sunday, I had listened to enough music to finally banish the last dying mental voice of the critic I thought I would be about this DAC.
Upon hitting play friday night for some background noise to our conversation, both myself and my lady stopped talking and just listened to what was playing out before us. The sense of immediacy, the transparency and presence this was putting forward was simply stunning. Just so engaging, emotive and just plain beautiful. We listened to almost an entire CD in silence before stopping it to have a discussion about it, and before we spoke, we sat silent for a couple of minutes trying to put it into words. We listen to a lot of music, and it is very rare to be drawn that far into the music on initial listen. As such, it struck a very serious chord with us.
A quick note on my lady too, She actually has a very good natural ear herself and tends to translate good music much faster into emotion, ie happy, dancing, singing etc. Putting it simply, she does not bop along with anything that sounds average and instead, will leave the room to get away from it. If its to the point where she is actually choosing what to play and taking an active role in it, it is really doing something special indeed.
The output of the killer is just super tight and accurate to the recording across the entire frequency range. Everything integrates so well and it just spins molten gold out of the sound. Gorgeous honey vocals, tight bass, sweet highs, I just have no idea really how to describe it as anything other than completely natural, beautiful music. I kept double taking on certain instruments (a snare drum for one, a trumpet solo another) which just sounded so real. So many times we re-listened to tracks just to digest the amount of detail that was being put forward.
Importantly for me, there is just no point for me in going the turntable route. Listening to good quality cd's, with the transport I have, and finally the killer, there is just no trace of digital anywhere in the sound. Gorgeous staging, fullblooded sound, analog bliss. For me, it effectively has all the strong points of analog, without any of the downsides and definitely no pops/cracks/hisses.
As I said to Steven on the phone, I have no idea how the hell this is as good as it is and honestly, I would rather just think of it as a little piece of black magic I am fortunate enough to own. His response? oh so you like the dac. I can see why this won the shootout and why people were blown away by it.