W4S Dac-2 DSD SE Upgrade

[Andrei]

I would like to report on my upgrade to the W4S Dac-2. This has already been well reviewed so I will keep it brief. The short point is that it does represent a decent improvement in sound quality.

Differences were in timbral accuracy, soundstage, and presence. Instruments such as guitar now sound a little closer to a real guitar. In terms of soundstage my kit already provided an excellent soundstage but now it is more well defined with voices being placed so that it possible to point exactly at the location of a player or singer. Presence is better as well. This shows up in singer/songwriter material - think Natalie Merchant, Katie Melua. The illusion of the singer in the room is pretty darn convincing.

A significant feature was that I found it took the full 200 hours before the unit was run in. This was considerably longer than the the original unit, that came on song after 70 to 100 hours. I set the unit to run 24 hrs a day for a week - a long time when you are waiting to try out your new toy!

All in all the Dac-2 DSD SE is a truly excellent Dac. I have not yet installed the ASIO drivers but will soon to try out some hirez DSD tracks I have.

I should also mention that I am happy with the level of service.

(The associated equipment is a dedicated self built PC running Win 8.1 [i7-3770S 3.1GHz] with Foobar2000 memory play as the software. The Preamp is an ATC CA2, the Power amp is the ATC P1, and the speakers are Triangle Magellan Cello. Interconnects are various Oyaide Silver, and speaker cables are Nordost Frey.)