For the past 10 years, the DAC in portable audio system is become more popular. It is because the DAC gives the most impact to the overall sound quality in the audio system. That is why changing one DAC to another will also changes the characteristic of the sound.
For sure, each DAC will sound differently. It not just because of the type of DAC chip itself, but the digital receiver before the DAC is playing the same important role in sound quality. The digital receiver also determined the capability of the DAC to read variety music files format. More over the DAC chip right now are super efficient. It only required small amount of power to run it.
In this post, I will reviewing this Massdrop Grace design SDAC. It is a desktop DAC, means you need to connect it to the external amplifier. It has fixed line output and it doesn't required any external power supply. It shares and draw the power from the USB input source.
Let's take a look.
This Massdrop Grace design SDAC is come with this simple cardboard package.
Once I open the box, I get a "Thank You" massages from Massdrop and Grace design.
This is a good attention in detail for the buyer's perspective.
The unit itself is also very simple. It is made from all aluminum chassis.
The front panel is only provide one LED only to indicate this unit is in operation or not.
With overall size same as a palm of my hand, this is quite a small unit.
At the back of the unit, there are the input output connector.
The input is via micro USB. No coax, no optical, only USB input.
It is very limited input option for sure especially if I compare to the same DAC at this price point such as the Schiit Modi Multibit I had review
here.
This USB input require power from the source. Let's say you are using a smartphone for the digital music source and connect to this SDAC, then the power will draw from it.
The output is provide by one pair RCA connector and a 3,5 mm mini jack. This is an option for easy connecting to the amplifier using the cable you already had, either the RCA or the 3,5 mm mini jack
Technically you can plug 2 amplifier at the same time with those connector. But the output between RCA and 3,5 mm mini jack are connecting together, thus connecting 2 amplifier to each output at the same time will effect to the total impedance of the amplifier input. Mostly this will degrade the sound quality. So better avoid this and choose only one output instead.
The DAC module is one fourth of the total size of the PCB. It is very small and a lot of empty space inside.
The idea when making this Massdrop Grace Design SDAC is to be stacking up with the Massdrop O2 headphones amplifier. It shared the same size between them so you can stack them together.
I inspecting the components inside and find the big IC named XMOS is for the digital receiver unit.
The DAC is AKM4452, not a bad DAC chip for the unit cost less then US$100 like this.
The op-amp after the DAC is OP1652, a high performance audio op-amp.
By looking to those components, I think there is nothing for me to do any components upgrade. Especially there is no capacitors at the signal line after the op-amp IC. It only pass through L1 and L2 for passive low-pass filter on each channel. Then the C1 and C2 are also small capacitor value for low-pass filter from signal to the audio ground.
So I hooked this SDAC to my android phone with USB Audio Player app installed.
My music file format on my phone are quite vary, they are DSD, DSF, WAV, FLAC, and Apple Lossless. They can be play with this device without any issue. The MQA also can play as well but I think it only read as FLAC in this device.
This SDAC DAC doesn't tell you what bitrate or sampling rate the music being play. Unlike the Chord Mojo or Audioquest Dragonfly that using the LED color to give the information about the music files playing.
The amplifier using in this test is Massdrop O2 amplifier, SMSL SP200, and Bottlehead Crack amplifier. I also try this SDAC to my home audio system using the Gainclone LM3886 amplifier with a pair of bookshelf speakers.
My first impression about this SDAC sound quality is surprisingly very well.
The more I listen the music using this SDAC, the more I like the sound.
The sound imaging is center. I can feel the singer focus at the front of my listening position. At the same time the sound stage is also wide. This stereo imaging is detail and presenting very well.
The background music is dark, this makes me feel the music more clearly.
The vocal is smooth with warm sound signature.
The high frequency is not edgy or piercing that makes you dizzy, it is very smooth.
I really cannot tell this good sounding is actually comes from under US$100 device? For sure this is my recommend DAC.
In my test, I always compare to my reference DAC is the Chord Mojo.
Despite the price is more than 5 times higher than this SDAC, I fell that SDAC perform very well. Not at the same level as the Chord Mojo, but also not significantly 5 times better as well.
The difference between SDAC with the Chord Mojo, the music engagement is less pronouce in SDAC. I also notice immediately that the lower frequency on SDAC is blurry and mixed. The bass is not as tight as the Chord Mojo. Which is the Chord Mojo is more pleasant and more refined.
Still, at the price for less than US$100, the SDAC is a winner. I am pretty sure this is a very good bargain for a good sounding desktop DAC.
Disclaimer: Any statement and photos in this article are not allowed to copy or publish without written permission from the writer. Any injury or loss from following tips in this article is not under writer responsibility.
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