Conclusion and sample video
Contents
We have also made a compilation for you where we switch between all the dacs. The differences are small. Grab some headphones for the best results.
Conclusion
Five dacs... all around 1000 euro. All with their own story and own interpretation of the music. How big are the differences in practice? Well... Not that big. But audible. Especially in the imaging and the calmness that a converter demonstrates. The RME ADI-2 shows the most control in our opinion. The Audiolab comes very close. Its big advantage is that it has more interface options. We also think that the RME deserves a better power supply, which costs money (that makes the gap price-wise equal to the Audiolab).IFI deserves the award for compactness and price/quality. This mobile dac simply comes along in this field. Which is really an achievement. The Metrum Amethyst certainly comes along, but is now a bit of a 'average dac' what it was not a few years ago... It shows that time does not stand still. And finally, the Audio GD R1. A somewhat tricky story. On the one hand this dac shows that measurements don't tell the whole story. ... only a part of the story. However, we cannot ignore the fact that we hear restlessness in the reproduction and this also manifests itself in the higher distortion and the linearity plot that is not straight. Does this dac sound bad? No, it doesn't. Not at all. But it doesn't present us with calmness either.
In mijn set herken ik de scherpte niet met de standaard voeding van de RME ADI-2 DAC. Wel het mooie gedetailleerde hoog. (Auralic Aries, RME, Hegel H360 en Dynaudio Contour). Ik heb de RME aangesloten op een Keces P3 voeding en hoorde geen verschil.
In my set I do not recognize the sharpness with the standard power supply of the RME ADI-2 DAC. The nice detailed high. (Auralic Aries, RME, Hegel H360 and Dynaudio Contour). I connected the RME to a Keces P3 power supply and heard no difference.
Hi folks. Thanks for this. I know you compared 5 DACs already but can I ask you to add the Merason Frerot (sans the external power supply I guess) to the mix?
Since you reviewed it positively in the past I’d like to know where it stands, especially versus the RME. I have the latter and I’m looking for a warmer DAC to diversify my stack.
Thank you and keep up the good work. I follow the YouTube channel a lot.
Thanks! Yes, we can measure the Merason as well. Geoffrey uses it as a reference in this class.
Hi folks. Thanks for this. I know you compared 5 DACs already but can I ask you to add the Merason Frerot (sans the external power supply I guess) to the mix?
Since you reviewed it positively in the past I’d like to know where it stands, especially versus the RME. I have the latter and I’m looking for a warmer DAC to diversify my stack.
Thank you and keep up the good work. I follow the YouTube channel a lot.
Thanks! Yes, we can measure the Merason as well. Geoffrey uses it as a reference in this class.