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Audio Blast: Eastern Electric Minimax DAC Plus – discrete opamp rolling

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The digital front-end tool kit

I have spent many years with digital front ends, but I have never happened upon such a powerfully efficacious and flexible system of revising a digital source so easily and so completely as when rolling these discrete Opamps. A person may change transports, DACs and cables to effect change, but almost never as simply and powerfully as dropping in a couple of these diminutive socketed circuit boards.

What might you be willing to pay for a digital front end with industry-leading resolution, pit-of-the-grave silence, timbral richness to salivate over, and a flexibility which adapts in a matter of moments to optimize nearly any system? Some people are paying five figures plus to have a less adaptable system than the one spoken of here. But in this case one can have a DAC and complete set of discrete Opamps from both companies with that capacity for under $2K. That is a powerful combination of attributes that I have not often seen in the audiophile community at a fairly affordable price. In my estimation it is well worth the outlay for both of the company’s products to have all the sonic options, as even when all the testing is done and the ideal set is found one is much farther ahead than outlaying prodigious sums for a designer player with less configurability.

I didn’t have trials as in “trials and tribulations”, but trials and tests with a variety of players acting as transports, both expensive and economical. If you have been a transport skeptic up until now, you likely will not be after securing the DAC Plus and rolling discrete Opamps! The transport is very important; it will make the difference between very nice sound and being utterly transfixed.

There are some situations in audio system building which are not immediately obvious but open up vast potential. A case in point is that if you have a killer cdp it may also be a killer transport. I wrote a positive review of the Simaudio Moon Evolution 750D DAC/Player. In several systems I have billed it is supremely good. But in several other systems it has been supremely good as a transport to the discrete Opamp enhanced DAC Plus. I found the same was true of the Ayon CD-5, another nearly $10K player. Why would I use such a player as a transport to a $1k DAC? In some situations, not all, but some, it sounds better than anything else. I’m about results, not convention, and if a big buck player as transport is better than the player stand-alone I’m going to use it.

Here’s the rub. In my experience it was not possible to get that level of premium performance from the DAC using a more modest transport. The global quality of the player seems determinant of the end result. I have tried the Oppo 970, Cambridge Audio Azur 840C, Denon DVD-2900, the old NAD 521, a Parasound changer and more. None of them came close to the profoundly robust nature of the performance using the Moon as transport. My experience has been that superior players make for superior transports. This is an additional variable for the serious audiophile; you can opt for your megabuck player as an independent source, or can use it with a discrete Opamp enhanced DAC. When you add to such a player the options of tuning via Digital cable and discrete Opamps in the DAC you increase your chances dramatically that you will be able to attain reference-quality digital sound.

The cable is also critical.

The last variable is the Digital coaxial cable. I do not typically work with Toslink/Optic cables, as they have consistently disappointed. I do try many, many digital cables as they will either allow the signal to flow through or degrade it, sometimes severely. Try at least three or four, and you will be astonished at the variance in even one link. When you find a superior Digital cable you will hear all the glorious attributes of discrete Opamps.

Here, again, is where the superior transport shines, as it will often have an AES/EBU output. Just as it is accepted truth generally among audiophiles that all things being qual a balanced cable will outperform a single ended one, it is my conclusion that an AES/EBU link between the player/transport will be superior to the S/PDIF (coaxial digital) link. This is yet another variable which when utilized maximizes the performance of the system when discrete Opamps are rolled into the DAC. If you have a player or transport with AES/EBU output (another reason why higher end players/transports tend to outperform lower cost ones), the Minimax DAC Plus accepts this input – use it!

Lest my comments here be misconstrued I will clarify; I am not saying that a cheap transport with the Minimax DAC Plus will outperform an extreme cdp in all respects. It can outperform such players in some aspects, but not all. No inexpensive transport has approached the overall sound quality achieved with high end transports. You will be making compromises if you eschew the higher quality transport. If your goal is supremely fine quality from the Opamp enhanced DAC Plus you will need to secure an appropriate drive unit and an exquisite digital cable.

Big money tunability for a pittance

What valuation would I place on the performance and flexibility of the Burson and Dexa discrete Opamps along with the Minimax DAC Plus? In terms of performance right at $10,000. Now that you have pushed your eyes back into their sockets, I’m not kidding; sonically this combo is worth $10k, because it sonically is equal to that level of performance and is eminently more flexible. It’s a system building dream!

While you will not get SOTA (state of the art) performance akin to cost-no-object designs by linking up any old transport/player with the discrete Opamps and DAC Plus, I’m confident you will get performance better than the majority of $3-5K players, and you could use an Oppo, Cambridge Audio, Denon or NAD to do it – or any other decent affordable player – with varying degrees of excellence. The best part is that the price for the package is within reach of most hard core audiophiles!

Discrete Opamps are the real deal and seem critical to advancement of digital processing of audio;any manufacturer who wants to get in the game with serious design should be contacting these companies. You’re welcome Burson. You’re welcome NewClassD. I’m not paid to write this stuff, but these companies deserve the recognition and business. Their products are hugely efficacious and seemingly largely undiscovered in the domestic two channel community. They should be discovered, and manufacturers need to get with it, get over the price increase in the product development to include these, and use them! The audiophile community will benefit from an industry-wide improvement in digital performance! These things could be standard in digital sources ranging from $2,000 to $25,000.

Unwitting hero

Alex Yeung at Eastern Electric ,by using socketed Opamps,has opened a flood gate on a damned up river of sound (Versus saying, “… a damned river of sound,” which is what I hear with nauseating monotony when I work out at Gold’s Gym daily!). Almost no one else is using socketed Opamps. Socketed Opamps are cheaper, so Alex was using a money-saving device in his design. But in doing so he is a hero by creating a space for rudimentary DIYers to join hands with component manufacturers and the audiophile community to benefit monumentally. I would like other manufacturers to follow suit – if you are doing so, write a letter to us at Dagogo.com and let us know – as I believe it holds so much potential it would revolutionize the experience of two channel playback. It makes me wonder if “under the hood” some of the digital ultra-devices on the market are using discrete Opamps as a secret design weapon.

This Audio Blast has become somewhat of an Editorial as well as review, but these products are inspiring in so many ways! To conclude, let’s say that one year down the road Aaron Audiophile is contemplating an affordable DAC. He encounters a new product that has socketed Opamps. The dealer/distributor presents it with lots of fanfare as it holds the promise of the hot option, an upgrade to Burson or NewClassD discrete Opamps. Aaron likes the sound of the stock unit with IC Opamps, but is not sure he should spend a quarter of the cost of the component on Opamps, because it is priced at $1,400 installed instead of $1,100 without the option. Pay it, Aaron. Get it, because these things are simply worth it! I think Bill O’Connell at Morningstar Audio is giving serious consideration to all his options in this regard when it comes to distribution of the DAC Plus, and well he should.

Finally, I’m not trying to take anything away from the Modding community. I see this as a win/win situation. If discrete Opamps make a bigger splash in the audiophile pool, there will be plenty of customers who never will take a cover off a component and will pay someone else to install these devices. These timid souls will still be winners, as discrete Opamps are worth it; Modification shops should rejoice at the added exposure. On the other hand, casual DIY’ers can still source the discrete Opamps and do the upgrade themselves.

In summary, the presence of Burson and NewClassD is very sweet, like having a sweet tooth for candy and learning that a candy factory with an outlet store will be built across from where you live! When it comes to tweaks none I have tried has ever been more powerful than the Digital Toolkit. I am happy to share it as a highly efficacious method of system building.

Web starter pages

Here are a couple of links which will get you into the meat of each company’s work with discrete Opamps for the DAC Plus:
http://www.newclassd.com/index.php?page=55
http://www.bursonaudio.com/burson_opamp.htm

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