All DAC (D/A Converter) Enthusiast Take Note!

I've seen many, I've heard a lot of companies brag about the capabilites of their new DAC (USB and NON), I've even lived with a few.
Sure - Wiess & Ayre Came very Close to what would be a long term keeper - but for the price and connectivity option vs Field Depth, they were only so so..

I would like to fellow members to take note of a new breakthrough DAC (with endless choice of input including USB) - This is the only dac you will ever need!

Used by some of the Major Hollywood Studios / Sound Engineers and somewhat
affordable to those who stand on a budget segment all the way to high end

Zodiac+ by Antelope Audio
http://www.antelopeaudio.com/en/products_integrity.html

I heard this in Los Angeles and was just speechless, i was told there is a
GOLD version with external PSU which cost more - which i havent heard, i auditioned the zodiac+ and was completely blown away..

I have no idea where to obtain this in KL, i'd reckon Singapore is the best bet for now! check out the Antelope Audio Website and have fun folks!'

Theres also a few videos on YouTube on Antelope Zodiac.

how much would one of these cost in USD for the budget constrained ?

PM me the price ?

cheers

this is no surprise. many in the forum have heard this. some have own this (for months). one has disown this. I am also surprise those who own it are keeping mum.

I have this since September.



Reference Audio and Audio Trio in Singapore are the authorized retailers.

tycham,
can you write a review and share your experience with the DAC ?
How does it compare with all the DACs you have owned or heard ?

Are there any weaknesses. I read that the power supply is a switching power supply. Also read that a better linear power supply is being developed.

Airy, extended highs, good soundstaging, stable imaging, impressive separations, very good highs and mid fineness, dynamic, transparent though lacking in certain degree of body/density, bass weight & depth, low bass frequency.
Overall sound is slightly towards lean & analytical.

soonthas wrote: Airy, extended highs, good soundstaging, stable imaging, impressive separations, very good highs and mid fineness, dynamic, transparent though lacking in certain degree of body/density, bass weight & depth, low bass frequency.
Overall sound is slightly towards lean & analytical.

I concur.

good for the lady gaga and Robot music?

oh boy what a pitty, you must include the power supply, USD700.00 only but the changes are huge! i tried listening to both version, and the one with the power supply just cooked ayre and weiss out of the broth.. i am thinking of getting it..tycham - how much did you pay for it? i am very interested!

may be just marketing hype, but i played "The Nature's Relam" by Philadelphia Philharmonic - the expose cd:) and it passed out with flying colours:))) or may be just the los angeles climate..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlI7OmK8Orw

thegoodarcher wrote:oh boy what a pitty, you must include the power supply, USD700.00 only but the changes are huge! i tried listening to both version, and the one with the power supply just cooked ayre and weiss out of the broth.. i am thinking of getting it..tycham - how much did you pay for it? i am very interested!

may be just marketing hype, but i played "The Nature's Relam" by Philadelphia Philharmonic - the expose cd:) and it passed out with flying colours:))) or may be just the los angeles climate..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlI7OmK8Orw

USD 700.00 is a lot of money for a Voltikus power supply! But you do get a "richer sound, and more heft on the bottom..." as mentioned in this interview.

Pricing can be found here.

Would be be interested in my unit? I am upgrading to the Gold when it's available.

but then whats the price out of singapore for the zodiac+ and the voltikus - the same as the states?
must hear the gold first though..wouldnt mind the gold on the long run, as i almost never sell what i buy...but thanks a lot of the info tycham,
i'll keep you posted!

thegoodarcher wrote:but then whats the price out of singapore for the zodiac+ and the voltikus - the same as the states?
must hear the gold first though..wouldnt mind the gold on the long run, as i almost never sell what i buy...but thanks a lot of the info tycham,
i'll keep you posted!

The price in Singapore is at the top end of SGD3K.

Aiyah Guys

We have been eyeing it since April this year.

And NO, it is not a killer DAC.

No way it is even near Weiss 202.

There is a lot of hype before it came out but after it is out, things quiet down.

Yes, you can buy it in KL, but I doubt they sold any, I might be wrong.

VS126 wrote:Aiyah Guys

We have been eyeing it since April this year.

And NO, it is not a killer DAC.

No way it is even near Weiss 202.

hahaha vince, good one.
Your splash of "cold water" seems somewhat ..... refreshing!

No lah. they sold some. look at our 'charming' friend who has been keeping mum of this little pretty.

Yeah, my bad.

It is good but not high there among the best,
Definately not rubbing sholders with the elite.

I have opportunity to compare Weiss 202 & Antelope Zodiac side by side power by Mark Levinson & Rival speaker. IMO, both are good sounding but not killer DAC.

Weiss 202 are more quite sounding & Antelope Zodiac are more rich in detail. Just which one you prefer.

By the way, you can get the Antelope Zodiac from
R.A.V.E SYSTEM SDN BHD
Edwin Tan 012-3241745 Agnes Tan 012 3242434 (old uncle & auntie)
edwin.refaudiomy@gmail.com
Lot 1.4. Level 1, PNB Darby Park
No. 10, Jalan Binjai,
50450 Kuala Lumpur.

Perhaps GD Audio Dac is much better, right Chua?

did you guys compare the :-
1) Zodiac or Zodiac + ?
2) does it have the Switching Power supply OR Linear Power Supply

I think there will be huge differences if different.

In the market there is no Zodiac. may be next year.

Zodiac Gold. Should be released earlier than Zodiac.

Why not try the Trinity Isochrone + Isochrone 10M. This gives you the atomic clock for another USD 3,400

GD Audio I have not heard of. But I have the Audio GD Dac. I cant say if Apple is better then Orange.

chua55 wrote: But I have the Audio GD Dac. I cant say if Apple is better then Orange.

Good way to put it.

Chewkw wrote:

Weiss 202 are more quite sounding & Antelope Zodiac are more rich in detail. Just which one you prefer.

It's a no-brainer! I would pocket the $5000.00 difference and go for the Zodiac+.

tycham wrote:

Chewkw wrote:

Weiss 202 are more quite sounding & Antelope Zodiac are more rich in detail. Just which one you prefer.

It's a no-brainer! I would pocket the $5000.00 difference and go for the Zodiac+.

Absolutely, especially if the money is in '$' rather than in 'RM' !!!

BTW, Mr Moderator, am I the only person receiving this 'peacelove23' message now. Are we being hacked/hijacked or something..

you are not the only one. I got 2 such messages too. someone is breaking into the system ?

This person registered as a user and is sending you spam via PM & replies. Banned.

So much for loving peace here...

chua55 wrote:In the market there is no Zodiac. may be next year.

Zodiac Gold. Should be released earlier than Zodiac.

Why not try the Trinity Isochrone + Isochrone 10M. This gives you the atomic clock for another USD 3,400

Why not try this cheaper rubidium master clock.?

carz wrote:tycham,
can you write a review and share your experience with the DAC ?
How does it compare with all the DACs you have owned or heard ?

Are there any weaknesses. I read that the power supply is a switching power supply. Also read that a better linear power supply is being developed.

carz,
6moons presented this review, of which I concurred with, much, much better than what I could possibly write.

This seller did a comparison with another brand.

someguy spamming some peace love bull - dear moderator please send it back to the stable!
as far as zodiac is concerned - i've always loved more natural sounds, and the zodiac to me seemed very natural - most important thing is its extremely precise and the timing of it is perfect - i've heard weiss,ayre and zodiac+ (with the voltikus power supply) and feel that it easily pushes the competition - SGD3k sounds very reasonable for a dac with so many connection options, and one that defiantly sounds high end + plus if you are in the entertainment business it can always come in handy for DAW transfer, i'm sold! the antelope gold looks like more futureproof ofcourse, it all depends on the $$$

tycham wrote:

Chewkw wrote:

Weiss 202 are more quite sounding & Antelope Zodiac are more rich in detail. Just which one you prefer.

It's a no-brainer! I would pocket the $5000.00 difference and go for the Zodiac+.

I concurr. Zodiac+ is a very good DAC. Good enough to match the hype too.

I also agree that the biggest let down is its switch mode power supply; however, if you isolated it well with 3 small cones, you gain a new heights! BUT please do not try to tweak Zodiac+ with cones or other footers; it works best with its supplied stock metal discs footers.

Jo Ki

It sound like the vinyl sonic edge is finally being breached by the DAC...

I have been reading quite some digital terms lately, and it seem the illusive jitter problem that often plagued the whole process till the final output of the analog stage, should have been solved/reduced in a faster rate that it should.

Maybe it isnt such an important matter after all for high fidelity reproduction; the remaining 10~15% of improvement in the digital conversion is often done by individual funded by comical sum, rather than those well-funded corporate. and this could have led to the snail pace and expensive improvement in DAC technology.

Or is it because of the underlying limitation of the format of S/PDIF and the current real time processing that we cant change over night; lead to an expensive fix?

Reason why I am saying so, is because computer technology which process so "much" data (should it be so many , since it is quantifiable), and done so little wrong in faithful data reproduction.

I believe, at this time, we should be enjoy more of hi end DAC technology tickle down to our cheaper equipment; instead of spending more money to get good sound or discovering new technology advancement over old jitter issues..

Haha, I stand to be corrected on all these rubbishes I wrote, so appreciate your inputs~

Many people believes the basic CD format is fundamentally flawed in which case it will -never- come near the sonic quality of analog records.

In the -real- computer world, we process data as data. These data are stored in a different format than that in a music CD. Furthermore, data integrity is done via technologies like RAID format and so forth. The CD format does not provide for these as much. They are different altogether.

As more and more 'esoteric' technologies like the atomic clock filters down to consumer audio, it is very easy to get misled by fancy terms and acronyms and all sorts of technical mumbo-jumbo an even bullshit. It is always important to keep an open mind and also to read widely in order to avoid being taken for a ride. So, adoption of more technology do promise improved sound but do be doubly careful of not being misled by inaccurate technological claims.

Its analytical sounding is partly contributed by its original metal disc feet.

Hi Wong,
Thanks for responding this. Data is processed as data as you would say in computer world, which should be the case in DAC during all the digital domain of the DAC processing. But most of the information and limited information I've got(or mis-interpreted); seems to be pointing out a lot of unfaithful data inconsistency happen even during this data stage of DAC processing.

Accuracy of data retrieval and processing in computer has to do with a lot of data error checking(dont remember the term used ) with possible multiple seek to get the exact correct data, IMHO this has lead to IT type of faithful data representation; and also impossible to do this in our S/PDIF format because there isn't error checking incorporate. So the non-stop streaming data needs to be maintained time corrected from beginning till the final analog stage... which is a huge undertaking ~

That's why I come out with the conclusion of an expensive fix of an old jitter problem.

music, like they say - an idiom that is without prejudice, claims alone (be it by a firm or any other established body which is capitalist in nature) unbacked by the dimension of good sonic reality, rarely passes any mark and more so in age like today, where anything that comes by the minute disappears by seconds, let alone minutes.

I would not compare anything digital to Vinyl, thats just my take, however, i would also not like to miss out on the great music that is out there today, by a lot of iconoclastic composers like Tan Dun,Rahman,Glass whos music is only available on popular mediums such as Compact Discs and High Resolution Tracks.
I know of their efforts to minimize the shortcomings of of the digital age during recording and mastering - but theres only so much that you can do on a format that is fundamentally flawed!
And something like the Zodiac+ - is a welcomed edition to an ever changing medium, the atomic clock, is a proprietary binary re-arragnement field which which is just meant help the reproduction music as it is intended.
I frankly see no harm - and the outcome is very satisfactory, only beaten by the glorious vinyl playback, even then there is something quite "ceremonious" about listening to a record - where i wouldn't mind a little bit of cracks and pop which makes the ceremony all too joyous..but i do welcome any technological advancement anyone brings to the wonderful world of music reproduction.

So, if you do have a fair amount of dough and need a a good D/A converter, you can safely spare your time to audition the Zodiac+, in a fast changing world - i wouldn't call any technology inaccurate, since technology itself is evolutionary in nature..- but then again what do you actually want? the answer is in the question itself.

As for as the "Atomic Clock" goes, i think its apart of Antelope Audio's Pro Gear Level Clocks - and i dont think its being employed in the zodiac, i think the clocking is lower level on an oven controlled quartz mechanism - but i may be wrong - i had no chance to study the specs - but totally dig the z+ sound.

adrian4454 wrote:It sound like the vinyl sonic edge is finally being breached by the DAC...

Here is a real-world anti-example.

Rega P2, properly aligned and setup, decent sub-RM1K phono stage & cartridge is enough to "bungkus" a Rega Apollo CD player . Using Tsai Chin's "Old Songs" album. LP vs. CD direct comparison. Everything else the same: same amp ,same speaker , same listening room, same sitting position, same underwear... etc etc.

WongKN wrote:Many people believes the basic CD format is fundamentally flawed in which case it will -never- come near the sonic quality of analog records.

In the -real- computer world, we process data as data. These data are stored in a different format than that in a music CD. Furthermore, data integrity is done via technologies like RAID format and so forth. The CD format does not provide for these as much. They are different altogether.

As more and more 'esoteric' technologies like the atomic clock filters down to consumer audio, it is very easy to get misled by fancy terms and acronyms and all sorts of technical mumbo-jumbo an even bullshit. It is always important to keep an open mind and also to read widely in order to avoid being taken for a ride. So, adoption of more technology do promise improved sound but do be doubly careful of not being misled by inaccurate technological claims.

To add on , the original redbook format , while they "thought" was good enough for audio resolution (back in the late 70s), has since long been disproven to be grossly inadequate, as shown by the development of more advanced filtering techniques to remove all the inherent flaws of digital audio . (See meridian's latest offering on apodising filters and other numerous AES papers), to try and remedy ... actually more like "salvage" the situation.

One should recognise that the original 44.1KHz 16bit resolution is vastly inadequate, and no amount of fancy DSP algorithm or processing power can make up for such losses that are intrinsic to the storage medium in the 1st place.

maybe the same haircut too; as the "sideburn" can interrupt soundwave..hahaha

IMHO, 16 bits is adequate for consumer product; but 44.1k isnt.

when audible frequency run at 20k, the amplitude is coordinated (sampled) only twice, it is like looking at jigsaw edge kind of modulation. Of course, this is at extreme case. But it will certain help to have higher sampling rate; where smoother or micro details can be "captured" by the dense sampling frequency. But again this is hopeless as it is already 16 bits 44.1k at the CD

So, those higher sampling rate done by our DAC is upsampling stuff is basically fooling around with jitter issues.. only.

Please dont shoot me if I got this wrong, appreciate your comments~

adrian4454 wrote:
So, those higher sampling rate done by our DAC is upsampling stuff is basically fooling around with jitter issues.. only.

Please dont shoot me if I got this wrong, appreciate your comments~

Not really for jitter , but the oversampling is for dealing with the problem of "folded down" frequencies which are beyond the Nyquist Freq. in a more realistic manner.

Slight digression:
For example, if you're sampling (or desampling) at 44.1KHz, the Nyquist Freq would be 22.05KHz.
If the source signal contained a signal of say ... 24KHz, and sampled at 44.1KHz, the recovered freq would NOT be 24KHz, but reconstructed as 20.1KHz (as opposed to the original 24KHz signal) instead. This would be a massive source of foreign noise / distortion and is totally unacceptable. Another term for this is called "Aliasing".


Oversampling done in the D/A stage is mainly to facilitate the easing of design filters in removing those junk freqs (to avoid aliasing) in the D/A conversion process. In conventional 44.1KHz D/A conversion, one needs either a brickwall aka very steep cutoff filter to remove all the intrinsic freqs above the Nyquist Freq. If they are not removed, they would be "folded" down into the audible spectrum as per the above example. Oversampling pushes the Nyquist freq way way way high into the upper region, so the filter section need not be a brickwall avalanche cutoff design. For those familiar with digital filter design, those smooth Butterworth curves have better phase coherency but a gradual rolloff, as compared to Chelbyshev or other filters that have give superb passband performance , then some ripple before the cutoff, and more compromises to the phase response esp near the cutoff zones.

Other advantages would be the "spreading" of the quantization noise .. in which instead of the random noise being held by one instance of bit frame, it is now spread over say 4 bit-frames , in the case of a 4x oversampling implementation.


However, in fact, oversampling would make the jitter specs even more crucial, as the timing between the frames would be even more critical to be accurate . The chips are all running at N times the original sampling rates.



(disclaimer)
... that is if i remember my stuff correctly from my DSP design days.

Thanks man.. That has made clearer on many of the jargons I've read.

adrian - sideburns acts a a diffuser LOL, nice one bro..

Incoming jitter is taken care of by the PLL. the clock feeding the PLL in the DAC handles this issues. so the more accurate clock is always prefered. the clock inaccuracy in the zodiac dac is something like losing a sample in 8 days.

I think the matching of transport n dac is the most important. Both of them must do their own job. Poor transport with best dac will give u bad sound. For me, I put good clock in both my transport n dac, make sure they sound good to my ears. Who cares what technologies they employed.

For serious Hifi music, I'll go for LP.

was waiting for someone to mention the "LP" word here ...

chua55 wrote:Incoming jitter is taken care of by the PLL. the clock feeding the PLL in the DAC handles this issues. so the more accurate clock is always prefered. the clock inaccuracy in the zodiac dac is something like losing a sample in 8 days.

The clock is derived from the bi-phase signal from the Transport stream.

Unless the DAC itself has its own built-in reclocker, it needs to depend on the Transport's stream and "recover" the clock signal from the SPDIF bitstream.

But honestly, all these obsession with hyper accurate clocks, multibit vs singlebit noise-shaping conversion, funky filters, etc etc STILL doesn't address the basic limitations of redbook (not Chairman Mao's ) audio. The essence of recorded music in into the plain CD format is already formaldehyed right at the 16bit/44.1KHz conversion phase.

To me, I use the analogy of a DVD upsampled to 1080p resolution versus an original Blu-Ray picture and I don't think anyone will argue that they are equal. In fact, I can even see the difference between HD-720p and HD-1080p picture. HD1080i is not that easy to discern nowadays though. Or rather my eyes, fortunately probably, is still not used to the difference. Yet.

adrian4454 wrote:
IMHO, 16 bits is adequate for consumer product; but 44.1k isnt.

sadly, 16 bits is not adequate for consumer products. just listen to the remastered beatles hires files which is 24bit 44.1khz. the difference in sound quality is amazing.

thegoodarcher wrote:
must hear the (zodiac) gold first though..wouldnt mind the gold on the long run, as i almost never sell what i buy.

the antelope zodiac gold offers up to 384khz sampling. frankly i don't think it's necessary and it's pure marketing.

1) at this moment no company sells hires files at 384khz sampling. 2l offers some 352.8khz files for testing.

2) correct me if i'm wrong, but no music player can handle 24/352.8 or 24/384.

3) u can argue that some time in the future there will be 24/384 or even 32/384 hires files for sale and music players will be able to handle these files, but i don't think it will happen in the next five years or so.

4) can u hear a difference between a 192 and a 384 file?

i spoke to linn's Gilad Tiefenbrun who was in kl recently to promote the linn Klimax DS player. he said there is a great difference between a 16 bit and a 24 bit file.
and there is a great difference between a 44.1 khz and an 88.2/ 96khz file.
but there is little difference between an 88.2 /96 khz file and a 192 khz file.

The bits stuff is seriously getting interesting here ya.
sflam, I dont really get the point of how 24 bits running at 44.1k, you mean the remastering at 24bits 96 or 192kHz then back to our very consumer 16bits 44.1kHz?

We dont have lab equipment to verify what has been stated by Nyquist theory to be truth. Or maybe those day lab equipment wasn't accurate enough to prove or disprove the theorem was right or not.

Like Mugen has mentioned on the latest discovery from Meridian new apodising filter that reduce pre-ringing effect might be going the right way to salvage or prove the theory of 16bits 44.1kHz is right. But does it really come a little bit too late?

Again, thanks to the power of computer processing, many weird algorithms in DSP mode can surpass some of the hardware inherited distortions. Something claimed by the latest Meridian player.

hmm.. wonder how many of those oldies that's less popular still have the master tape that hasnt been ripped to hi end digital. And I keep wondering whether is this master truly good or it is the latest digital editing that make it good? This might be true to all the post millennium recording. Due to the new found DSP processing power; it may able to true a normal sounding recording to something rather exceptional; just like what Photoshop is doing to some pictures now.

Since the world hasnt got much chance to see CD selling like a bundle anymore, I did end up stocking some recent wannabe audiophile CD from China(Where as other than getting from Popular). Most of them sound overcooked with the editing, with unreasonable high and over ethusiastic vocal. God bless the music scene, there will be a lot of not so pro using pro software to make "so-called" good music file, as the mastering technology is getting cheaper to acquire.

Again, all these are my own rubbishes, appreciate your correction or point of view.

Not sure how many of you guys are old enough to remember the 'justification' for the CD format way back when it was first proposed. The sample size (16bit) was chosen to meet a specified dynamic range (100dB I think, not sure) and the 44.2kHz sampling frequency was chosen because it could handle the audible frequency range from 0Hz to 22kHz. As human hearing typically does not exceed 20kHz and that even 20kHz is heard only by little kids plus the fact that no popularly used musical instrument actually produces up to 20kHz (even rarely does it goes above 10kHz), thus the standard says that this specification EXCEEDS the human auditory capacity. The idea was to use a brickwall filter to take away all the artificats above 22kHz.

The idea of using over-sampling to artificially create frequencies above 22kHz was first mooted barely a few years after CD was widely adopted. At that time, there was a huge debate whether reviewers and consumers were just hearing things 'in our minds' because physically the human ear -cannot- hear above 20kHz, in fact, most adults will top out at around 14, at most 15kHz. This is why the original LP of the Beatle's Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band has a pure 15kHz tone embedded in the end of record run-out groove, the part where it forms a circle. So the idea was to annoy yours or your neighbour's dog if you left the record running but you yourself won't hear anything.

As with all technologies, eventually because of the inherent itchy beksides of audiophiles and also the ease of which we get seduced by techno-babble, the lure of good money from using fancy technologies has become too great for many DAC manufacturers to overcome. Some of these technologies do work to an extent. But just be extra prudent with your wallet when dealing with some of the latest wonder DACs, those with atomic clocks and what not. They do work but do be careful about any side-effects. To me, the best solution can only be at the source, using music sources with more than 16bit/44.2kHz encoding.