@ajay & anm, you guys understood exactly how I felt!
@vasishta.sushant, Price + UK shipping + International shipping + Duty = a shade above 50K INR. Not bad, considering the price in the US is $995.
First Impressions
I know I'm going to sound like a dumb fan boy here, but this DAC is just something else! Right out of the box it sounded
great.
The music it makes is so unlike anything my setup used to make, I really don't have a frame of reference I can use to describe it.
Everything about the music is better.
The DAC makes things sound
fast and rhythmic. The music sounds
very engaging and involving, so much so, that it is like it is urging you to get up and groove with it. At the same time, it feels as though the setup is doing all this easily and effortlessly.
I listened to music all night yesterday, right from 10.00PM. I'd started listening with a plan to cover some specific favourite tracks and artists first. But as I started listening, I found it hard to change tracks/albums/artists as per plan once the track I intended to listen to was over. Without even realisiing it, most of the time, I continued to listen to and enjoy the next track in the album that came up. This is how much I got drawn in by the way the DAC made music. I continued listening all night, till nearly 5.00AM. I'd intended to stop by around 3.00AM, but I just couldn't.
The music is quite detailed, without being at all harsh or sharp. Passages that used to sound a bit grainy on the top notes (extended vocal passages, trumpets pushing the limits, etc.) now sound very very smooth and liquid without any hint of graininess or roughness.
Since the Music-PC is down, I'm now using the WDTV as a transport. The WDTV normally has a very narrow sound stage, and the stage is pretty shallow. But with the Rega in the mix, the stage has really opened wide and extends back a lot more. There is a very defined layering, especially in live tracks like Patricia Barber's "Let it Rain" (Live version), I could place the singer, the guitar, the drums and the rest of the instruments in very distinct zones and layers.
The vocals are very full and life-like, and stand out almost holographically. There is a very luxurious texture to vocals now. Sound trails (my way of describing the last lingering part of vocals) of artists like Alison Krauss, Eva Cassidy and Katie Melua which used to sound a bit lispy/bright/harsh to my ears, sound buttery smooooooooth now.
There is a lot more bass. Bass is one place where the DAC confuses me. In some places (in tracks), the bass sounds a lot more defined, faster and controlled than before. But in some other places, the bass sounds looser or more smoothed down than before. There is significantly more bass weight than before, without there being too much bass, which is good.
The only thing I don't like about the DAC is the way it looks. It looked butt-ugly in the pictures on the 'net. It looks quite a bit better in person. But still, it could have looked better. Also, there are too many LEDs that light up when it works. Other than the Rega logo which gets backlit in red when the DAC is switched on, there are 4 LEDs that light up when music is playing. The LEDs are only low-to-medium bright, so I can live with it.
A lot of this enthusiasm could be attributed to the honeymoon effect, but I'm certain that I got exactly the kind of music I wanted. I understand the DAC improves substantially over the first couple of 100 hours and I look forward to more enjoyment. What I'm really waiting for, is to be able to listen to it with my
real source, the Music-PC. I'll have to wait for the mother board replacement for that. At least the DAC will be mostly burnt in by the time I get the motherboard.
I know the Rega is too much DAC for my current setup. But then, I'm sure my long-term source is ready now. My main requirement was that I wanted something to work with my Music-PC, that sounded less "digital", and that had a lot more body. Though I haven't been able to listen to it with my Music-PC yet, I think my need has been met.
Next stage > Speaker upgrade, to something around 1L (in maybe a year).
Next stage > Amp upgrade to a pre/power combo or an integrated that comes to something around 80K (another additional year I guess).
Next stage > Online UPS (no idea when)
Next stage > Quit upgrading
Sorry for a really loooong post.
