Camelot Dragon Pro2 Jitter Reducer & Resolution Enhancer Review

I guess my journey for the best DAC has finished. I put the link for every DAC I built last year in the single post here. I couldn't ask for more since I already have the best sounding DAC.

The music from the DAC using PCM63, AD1865 or TDA1541 is all wonderful. But again, audiophile is a hobby. For me this is a journey to have the best possible audio playback. It is not end yet, especially when I borrowed this Camelot Dragon Pro2 from my friend. I already have the best DAC with the optimal implementation, is this unit necessary? Let's find out.

Camelot Dragon Pro2 is a vintage product released in late 90's. The function of this unit is to clean up the jitter between the digital connection, from player to DAC. This is also the resolution enhancer which in others words, it is an oversampling unit outside the DAC.

As you might know that jitter is simply an error in digital transmission. The less the jitter, the more sound you will hear. This simple jitter explanation tells everything about what this unit can do. But how a digital words that consist by 1 and 0 can make any difference in sound quality?

If I talking about what inside the DAC circuitry in detail, mostly they equipped with the oversampling circuitry. This oversampling is the clever approach to recreate the missing digital words by predict to what it will comes next in very complicated ways.

Then, if this oversampling already do this jitter reduction, Do I still need this Camelot Dragon Pro2?

But before I test this unit, I better see what is the component inside.

Once I open the top cover, I see are lots of IC.

The main transformer is quite small, I believe around 12 VA. This type of transformer is EI type, split bobbin configuration for lower noise compares to typical standard type EI transformer.

I can see the main filter capacitors has been changed to Elna capacitors. I believe the original was Panasonic FC type of capacitors.

Going to the main components, the digital receiver from SPDIF and optical is handle by this receiver IC CS8412.

There are lots of logic IC's around it. Perhaps they are for input selector function and the front panel display.

I think this is the main components for this jitter reducer and resolution enhancer. The black covered component module design by in-house Camelot engineering. So no one can copy this unit.

The whole unit inside is look just like this. Looks very complicated.

This unit can be use as the digital receiver because there are many digital input and output option to choose. Thera are SPDIF, AES-EBU, Toslink, AT&T optical, and I2S for both input and output.

The I2S input and output in this unit is nice to have. You might wondering today hype about how good this I2S connection against the jitter, but in fact this Camelot Dragon Pro2 has using this I2S for long time ago. Others company also do the same way like this. Again, nothing new under the sun.

I hope you don't ask about what is AT&T optical connection is? Vintage audio is full of great stuff. This AT&T optical is the better optical connection compares to Toslink. But sadly it is not very popular and expensive to implement for commercial use.

Next I am going test this unit in my home audio system. The digital input and output that I am using here is the SPDIF.

This Camelot Dragon Pro2 is connect between the Fiio M5 as digital music player to my DAC.

The two switch at the front panel are actually digital switch. Once you toggle it up or down (depends on the function you want to choose) it return back to the center position. The feels when operate the switch are very solid.

This is the function of the switches.

Toggle up the left switch is for power ON/OFF, toggle down for the input selector.

Toggle up the right switch is for phase inverted or non-inverted, toggle down for output resolution selector: 16, 18 or 20 bit output.

The display on the left is the input source indicator, the display on right is output sampling rate.

The first time I test this Camelot Dragon Pro2 in my home audio system, I was shocked. Wipe my forehead, shocked for what I heard with only adding this unit in my digital connection between the player to the DAC.

This is open my mind that the jitter reducer and resolution enhancer improve the sound quality so much especially on better music separation, tonal balance, improve dynamic, better imaging and larger sound-stage. This unit is double up the sound quality from the DAC without changing the raw and natural sound of the DAC itself!

In this test, I am playing many music genre. Lately I often listening to Aron Neville music albums. The music presentation is rich, lots of micro detail and dynamic. By adding this Camelot Dragon Pro2 in my system, the music comes to live. Like a new dimension of live music presentation in my audio system. No wonder in this testing time which I planned only for an albums, but it is end up by almost 4 hours straight!

I start to wondering how the sound change when I put the different setting on this Camelot Dragon Pro2.

So I change the phase option in this unit. I felt that inverted phase slightly give the better sound. Especially on the top end. The treble with inverted more open and extended. This could be my speakers cross-over point are not perfectly in phase, so this function are subtle to hear.

Next I also trying the output resolution. But this setting doesn't give any noticeable difference at all. I only notice there is a small difference in noise when choosing the output resolution above the DAC can handle. For example, in my PCM63 DAC, which is 20 bit, any resolution option doesn't give any noticeable difference at all. This is different when I am using 18 bit AD1865 DAC. If the resolution output from this unit is set to 20 bit, it will be noisier than using 18 bit or 16 bit resolution output.

Because this unit is borrowed to me for a few week, so I should return it back when the time comes.

My audio system is now playing the music without this unit. The music without this unit is not right, which before I am not using this Camelot Dragon Pro2 in my audio system, I am not complain at all.

This unit is a magic. The price spent for this unit are worth to the sound improvement.

This is really remind me to the recent product such as Chord M-Scaler. I believe they shared the same function but for the Chord M-Scaler, it should be more advanced than this Camelot Dragon Pro2.

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