Santhosh, kindy let us know about Maverick, how much did it cost and how does it sound, especially as compared to essence STX.
Please take whatever I'm about to say with a sea full of salt. This is just a highly subjective, unscientific, non-audiophile and utterly n00bish opinion. My opinion could have changed by the time I hit submit. But, I said I'll
try earlier in the thread, hence I have
My setup is as follows:
- HTPC with Asus Essence STX, Maverick TubeMagic D1 with stock Chinese tube and stock Opamps, Topping TP20 MK2 Amp, Audire IO2 speakers.
- STX's RCA out was fitted with Blue Jeans Cable LC-1 IC and D1 was connected via MX IC. The sources were switched using a Source Selector, which was connected to TP20 via a shorter BJC IC. Changing this IC i.e., SS -> Amp had the most impact on the sound than source -> SS (Shouldn't it be the other way around?). So, left it as-is rather than plugging and unplugging all the time.
- The software used is foobar v1.0.3 with Asus STX "Bit perfect" Beta drivers via Kernel Streaming (Windows XP).
- Room is untreated.
Before my HTPC was assembled, I was listening to my CDP -> D1's Tube Pre-out -> TP20 with all MX ICs and was always missing something compared to my audition sessions. Since all the components in my chain were new to me, I could not quite figure out what the "missing part" was. Of course, my untrained bad ears did not help matters. When I connected STX:RCA -> D1's "Analog" -> D1:Tube Pre-out -> TP20 today, I finally figured. If I wrote exactly what I felt even with *s, I'd be banned :indifferent14:. The instruments were clustered, the details were missing and highs were a bit "shouting". The rest of the tests were performed via D1's Line out.
I then connected STX:SPDIF Out -> MX RCA-RCA to D1's "Coaxial" Input -> D1: Line out -> TP20 and then volume matched (but without using SPL meter) both outputs. When I was trying one of Opeth's songs, which does have a fair bit of vocal sibilance in the recording, the D1 "Coax" spit sibilance into my ears, where as STX did not show it much. Other than that, I could not find any significant differences. I'd assume this as a test of STX's Digital out vs Analog out more than test of D1's DAC capabilities. Don't know if I am right.
I then connected HTPC's USB to Maverick D1 and installed the customized USB drivers mentioned in the
Head-Fi thread. The test tracks I used comprised of one well known track and another unfamiliar track, so that I make an effort to observe more than my normal attention span of 2.34 secs. The known track being "Hessian Peel" by Opeth from "Watershed" album in FLAC and the unknown track was "Angel" by Massive Attack from "Mezzazine" album in 192 kbps MP3.
Between STX's analog out and D1's "USB", the STX scored in terms of bass. I could "feel" the impact instead of "hearing" it with DAC. I am taking a wild N00b guess from the driver's vibration (which it does for < 30 Hz) that STX's bass did extend lower compared to DAC.
In terms of sound stage width, I could not find too much of a difference. The DAC positioned the singer right in center standing in front of me. I felt that STX had positioned it like the singer was sitting on a tall chair. In terms of mids and highs, STX carried the same "slam" it had in bass (may be just a SPL thing, I am not sure). The DAC sort of sounded smooth in comparison and to my ears, sounded much clearer with Massive Attacks' song. The DAC did not disappoint in terms of imaging and instrument separation either. STX in comparison may have retrieved a little more of the tiny details or I had the placebo of having some good ears at that time.
My opinion:
- Since this is my first setup, I do not have anything to compare the DAC against. I don't have any "reference" of a better sound either.
- D1 does not seem to have a bad DAC section as I long suspected. I expected it to be really crappy and thought STX would be a winner by leaps and bounds. That did not happen. For this short test, purely for listening purposes, you cannot go wrong with either. At the end of the day, D1 is still a clone of a Chinese amp with unknown chips. So, expecting it to outshine costlier DACs would be a mistake. FWIW, in the context of this very short test, it was neutral, slightly lacking in bass extension and impact, good in imaging, decent to good in detail retrieval .... (ok! I've run out of terms I know ). And be warned, all these descriptions are subject to change on a comparison of longer duration with more tracks and test files. I could try a comparison between uDAC and MAV's DAC section via USB in the future.
- One of the main strengths of D1 is the headphone amp section. I have not compared D1's HP out and STX's HP out. The line out and HP are run by different opamps and they can be swapped. May be after tube rolling is over :licklips:
- But in the tube pre-out section, one would need to immediately replace the stock Chinese tube. As of now, PristineNote (who BTW, has become officially one of the only four international distributors for Maverick Audio) ships it with the GE 5670W NOS tube, which is supposed to be really good and detailed. I am looking forward to thinning my wallet tube rolling
PS: It took me more time to write this than the actual comparison
