What i mean is that the 1.1 is so much better thanĪnything near it's price range that you may just forget about wasting all Tell you here and now, the new Audio Note Kit DAC 1.1 makes the Black Cube Germany to rave about the Lehmann Audio Black Cube phono stage and lemme Look, i was the first reviewer outside the confines of In fact for the veryįirst time CDs seem to sound as rhymically natural as vinyl. This is not subtle folk!!! This is smack you upside your Rethink that 'CD Sucks' mantra (like people did in the 70's when Instruments have such a natural sound that it makes me This is what the DAC Kit 1.1 is all about! Now imagine that sameīasic idea of using 1x (or zero times) oversampling to decode 16-bit/44.1ĬD. News & Record Review none other than Martin Colloms reviewed the newĪudio Note 1x oversampling mega-thousand dollar Audio Note DAC 5 and raved all about it. How does the final version sound? Captivating, entrancing, Enough with the teasing, here comes the pleasing. (or $699 for those of us on this side of the pond and dealing in USĭollars). What if i told you this kit was only £550.00 inc. Most people would take one look at think you spent The chassis is extremely solid and you get a very impressive 3/16' brushed aluminumįront face plate. The tube output stage uses a single 12AU7A / ECC82 as a common cathode amplifier which provides voltage gain to allow the Dac Kit 1.1 to be used with any active preamplifier, and some passive preamplifiers.' The kit uses the well proven Crystal CS8412CP input receiver, and the DAC chip is the Analog Devicesġ8 bit AD1865N. This configuration in our opinion has proven to be musically superior to other over sampling methods. You want more details? Well, to quote their Web site 'The DAC Kit 1.1 is a stereo digital to analogue converter using Audio Note 1 X over sampling techniques. Is also included for you power cord DIY junkies. Right and left channel unbalancd RCA jacks. The DAC Kit 1.1 comes standard with both a 75 Ohm BNC unbalancedĪnd 110 Ohm AES/EBU balanced (XLR) digital inputs. Talents of none other than Michael Kerster comes the all new Audio Note DAC That makes my fave el cheapo Assemblage DAC 2.0! Coming from the design Happen to be an ex-employee of Sonic Frontiers (the Big Boys of the sameĬompany that owns The Parts Connection). Ah, an oxymoron! ThenĪdd a nice 12AU7 tube in the output stage. Making a DAC with zero times 'oversampling'. We'll get to some testing and finally to the pleasing. Ok, let me get you hot and wet first with some foreplay.

So i figured this was another $3,000 killer DAC. Have been the way of the Ongaku, the Audio Note Silver interconnect cableĪnd totally mind blowing hand-wired all silver cartridge step-up Magic product (at the usual 'magic five-figure price'). I first heard the new Audio Note DAC Kit 1.1 in prototypeįorm in Italy at the Milan Top Audio & Video Would be to get a used, and excellent value in my humble opinion, Assemblage DAC 2.0. Opposed to $1,295 i would still feel it is not worth the money. System! Out with you, you nasty DAC you! Even if the MSB was only $600 as Not only uninvolving, it was a revelation to eradicate the unit from my Maybe this is the problem?Īll i can say in that no matter how much i tried, in my system the MSB was Have also been receiving letters about the lousy sound from decodingġ6-bit/44.1 kHz CDs on 24-Bit/96 kHz chipsets. You see, we are talking about odd integer processing and i Amazing since the MSB uses a 24-bit/96 kHz DAC chipset. Unit? Beats me except to say that i have spoken to a few other friends whoĪlso feel as i do that the MSB is just ok, yet even the older Assemblage DACĢ.0 ($499 kit, $549 assembled) as offered by The Parts Connection was muchīetter. What could explain the not so appealing sound of this Was the unit broken?Ī few brief measurements in a friend's lab seemed to indicate the unit was The bass was not only over blown, it lacked definition. It seems that in my system the MSB was a no go. Rochlin Memorial to those from Kimber and Illuminati. I tried various interconnects from basic copper to $1,600 One to mince words, and frankly do not want to waste too much of my time Their upper line $1,295 Gold Link DAC would turn the trick. Ok, so since i was looking for something really awesome i While at the BostonĪudio Bash '99 show someone brought with them the basic $399 Link DACĪnd it did indeed improve the music quality over the stock Denon CD player'sĭACs. Sadly, all i found was seeminglyĪ simple lump of coal. After reading all the hype and praise i was truly hoping to findĪnother one of those diamonds in the rough. and kicks it's butt! The Tale of Two DACs Audio Note Kit 1.1 Meets MSB's Highly Raved Gold Link DAC.

Audio note kit 3