Xiang Sheng dac-01A - Good as a beginner DAC? Worth Rs.18,500 (Used)

[Winter Green]

Hi Guys,

I am buying a DAC for the first time and found this one available at a nearby seller who is quoting Rs.18500.

Would this be a good choice for a beginner DAC? Or, are there a better choice that I can go for, around 20K? Since, I am upgrading all my 'mid-fi', in a few months, I might consider buying a new/better DAC at that time. So for now, I need something to begin/experiment with.

Thanks in advance.

 

[jai1611]

Thats quite an old design. Budget DACs have gotten a lot better over the past few years. Unless you want the tube or some other specific feature, look elsewhere at that price.

 

[Amarendra]

Hi Guys,

I am buying a DAC for the first time and found this one available at a nearby seller who is quoting Rs.18500.

Would this be a good choice for a beginner DAC? Or, are there a better choice that I can go for, around 20K? Since, I am upgrading all my 'mid-fi', in a few months, I might consider buying a new/better DAC at that time. So for now, I need something to begin/experiment with.

Thanks in advance

Read about the available DACs on sites like headphonezone. see what features are required- USB/ optical/ coax etc. check what resolution you need. Read about best DACs on whathifi. See user reviews on this forum. Don’t rush.

 

[Winter Green]

Thats quite an old design. Budget DACs have gotten a lot better over the past few years. Unless you want the tube or some other specific feature, look elsewhere at that price.

Thank you very much! Is there one that you can suggest, please? I was shortlisting Topping E50 or the D50S, I am sure which one to go for. Would you make a suggestion?

Thats quite an old design. Budget DACs have gotten a lot better over the past few years. Unless you want the tube or some other specific feature, look elsewhere at that pric

 

[Winter Green]

Read about the available DACs on sites like headphonezone. see what features are required- USB/ optical/ coax etc. check what resolution you need. Read about best DACs on whathifi. See user reviews on this forum. Don’t rush.

Good guidance to start with. I did try hpz, will checkout whathifi and list down a few and make a pick. Thank you!

 

[jai1611]

Thank you very much! Is there one that you can suggest, please? I was shortlisting Topping E50 or the D50S, I am sure which one to go for. Would you make a suggestion?

I personally like the Ifi Zen options. Very much a matter of personal preference though. Depends on what features you want

 

[SanVJ]

Good guidance to start with. I did try hpz, will checkout whathifi and list down a few and make a pick. Thank you!

Do checkout S.M.S.L SU-6. It's has internal power supply. I pre-ordered it on HPZ.

 

[DB1989]

Hi Guys,

I am buying a DAC for the first time and found this one available at a nearby seller who is quoting Rs.18500.

Would this be a good choice for a beginner DAC? Or, are there a better choice that I can go for, around 20K? Since, I am upgrading all my 'mid-fi', in a few months, I might consider buying a new/better DAC at that time. So for now, I need something to begin/experiment with.

Thanks in advance.

What are the inputs that you need (or can do without) in the DAC?

If you USB input is all you want, the Ifi Zen DAC V2 or for that matter, if you don't need XLR output, the Ifi Zen DAC Air are excellent starting points. After having used a whole host of DACs including the RME ADI-2 DAC FS, Chord Mojo, Topping E30, i can state with a certain amount of confidence that they punch way above their weight.

If you want the entire gamut of coaxial, optical, USB, Bluetooth inputs alongwith XLR output, the Zen One Signature is also a really good option that you won't feel the need to upgrade from in a hurry.

 

[magma]

Whathifi ...

Pretty biased on Western electronics
And a 100% paid source of reviews

Check the ASR forum
Only science
No subjective reviews


The loudness factor is what the companies slyly play with

Just a db more
And the naive audiophile thinks "wow
It's clearer"

Watching the volume knob level when comparing a dac is absolutely no way to judge a dac

Measure the db level in your room
To truly judge a dac (by keeping the measured db level constant not the position of the volume control knob )

Different dacs have different output volts and this causes a false notion when you compare dacs looking at the volume knob of your amp

 

[Winter Green]

I personally like the Ifi Zen options. Very much a matter of personal preference though. Depends on what features you want

Okay Jai bro. I will check them out. Thank you.

 

[Winter Green]

Do checkout S.M.S.L SU-6. It's has internal power supply. I pre-ordered it on HPZ.

Okay San bro. I will check out S.M.S.L SU-6. I think the internal power supply will have something to filter power-related noise. I used to make my own amps (simple one-chip ones, but realized that hi-fi is a different level, so better to go for them instead).

 

[Winter Green]

What are the inputs that you need (or can do without) in the DAC?

If you USB input is all you want, the Ifi Zen DAC V2 or for that matter, if you don't need XLR output, the Ifi Zen DAC Air are excellent starting points. After having used a whole host of DACs including the RME ADI-2 DAC FS, Chord Mojo, Topping E30, i can state with a certain amount of confidence that they punch way above their weight.

If you want the entire gamut of coaxial, optical, USB, Bluetooth inputs alongwith XLR output, the Zen One Signature is also a really good option that you won't feel the need to upgrade from in a hurry.

Hey DB1989 bro, I mainly want to use my computer where I have good quality FLAC audio. I also have a high quality DVD player that can output digital audio via coaxial, and have a good collection of audio CDs that I want to listen to. I have noted down your recommendations and will check them out. Thanks a ton!

 

[Winter Green]

Whathifi ...

Pretty biased on Western electronics
And a 100% paid source of reviews

Check the ASR forum
Only science
No subjective reviews


The loudness factor is what the companies slyly play with

Just a db more
And the naive audiophile thinks "wow
It's clearer"

Watching the volume knob level when comparing a dac is absolutely no way to judge a dac

Measure the db level in your room
To truly judge a dac (by keeping the measured db level constant not the position of the volume control knob )

Different dacs have different output volts and this causes a false notion when you compare dacs looking at the volume knob of your amp

Thanks Magma bro. I definitely go by technical/science based reviews. I used to make simple amplifiers and filters, so technical data is good for me. Thank you for this recommendation. I will note the volume-roomsize-audio quality factors you have mentioned and will make my decisions. Thanks again!

 

[Winter Green]

I finally got Topping E30 as my first DAC. I was considering S.M.S.L SU-6 that has built-in power supply, but with the super-bad power fluctuations in the houses I live (Bangalore and Chennai), external PS would be better, if it burns out (two USB adaptors..have burnt out, one Apple and other Samsung,), at least my DAC would be okay.

I have Ubuntu installed on my computer (linux last 16-17 years!), and had Topping E30 connected to my Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and was disapointed to see no difference in audio quality. The device reads 44.1 PCM and I am trying to change this. I tried editing Pulse Audio config but no luck.

Appreciate any inputs.

 

[DB1989]

I finally got Topping E30 as my first DAC. I was considering S.M.S.L SU-6 that has built-in power supply, but with the super-bad power fluctuations in the houses I live (Bangalore and Chennai), external PS would be better, if it burns out (two USB adaptors..have burnt out, one Apple and other Samsung,), at least my DAC would be okay.

I have Ubuntu installed on my computer (linux last 16-17 years!), and had Topping E30 connected to my Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and was disapointed to see no difference in audio quality. The device reads 44.1 PCM and I am trying to change this. I tried editing Pulse Audio config but no luck.

Appreciate any inputs.

Whats the rest of your chain?

 

[mbhangui]

I finally got Topping E30 as my first DAC. I was considering S.M.S.L SU-6 that has built-in power supply, but with the super-bad power fluctuations in the houses I live (Bangalore and Chennai), external PS would be better, if it burns out (two USB adaptors..have burnt out, one Apple and other Samsung,), at least my DAC would be okay.

I have Ubuntu installed on my computer (linux last 16-17 years!), and had Topping E30 connected to my Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and was disapointed to see no difference in audio quality. The device reads 44.1 PCM and I am trying to change this. I tried editing Pulse Audio config but no luck.

Appreciate any inputs.

Pulseaudio means you will not get bit perfect. Pulseaudio is the mixer most Linux distributions use, and it likes to resample and mix the audio from multiple sources (leading to non-bit-perfect audio). Pulse audio is like the dreaded windows mixer, but better.

You can get bit-perfect audio from Linux without too much difficulty using ALSA. Most popular distributions of Linux (Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, OpenSuse) to name but a few, use the Pulse Audio Sound Server which, by default, will mix all audio down to 16/44.1 or 48 for movies. Not good for 24/96 or higher. Those who want bit perfect audio in Linux need to bypass this "feature"

You need to use ALSA to interface with your DAC directly and not use any middleman in between. Take a look at

Bit Perfect Audio from Linux

I've never got a very clear answer or understanding if it's posible to configure ALSA to output a bit perfect copy of a playing music file (as the only sound playing), no resampling or mixing for supported output sample rates and bit rates. I wouldn't mind it to work like WASAPI in shared mode...

www.head-fi.org

IMHO, the best software to do music playback is the mpd daemon (which has absolutely no media management interface, absolute zero interface to show songs, play button, etc). It is just a daemon. You can however use many clients that talk to the mpd daemon. There is a command line client named mpc. Since you are using ubuntu, you can install cantata, which is a gui based mpd client. You will have to configure /etc/mpd.conf to interface with your dac directly. Since you have used linux for last 16-17 years, all you need to do is use the man pages for mpd and mpd.conf and you should be singing with your dac. You just need to install them

# apt-get update && apt-get install mpd mpc cantata

If you are so used to windows, then you can use a client like strawberry to play your music and directly interface with ALSA and play bit perfect music.

This is a good resource for things related to music on linux. Though this primarily for Raspberry PI devies, you can use the guide here for configuring mpd on any device.

Configure MPD – Linux Audio Foundation

linuxaudiofoundation.org

 

[Winter Green]

Pulseaudio means you will not get bit perfect. Pulseaudio is the mixer most Linux distributions use, and it likes to resample and mix the audio from multiple sources (leading to non-bit-perfect audio). Pulse audio is like the dreaded windows mixer, but better.


You need to use ALSA to interface with your DAC directly and not use any middleman in between. Take a look at

Bit Perfect Audio from Linux

I've never got a very clear answer or understanding if it's posible to configure ALSA to output a bit perfect copy of a playing music file (as the only sound playing), no resampling or mixing for supported output sample rates and bit rates. I wouldn't mind it to work like WASAPI in shared mode...

www.head-fi.org

IMHO, the best software to do music playback is the mpd daemon (which has absolutely no media management interface, absolute zero interface to show songs, play button, etc). It is just a daemon. You can however use many clients that talk to the mpd daemon. There is a command line client named mpc. Since you are using ubuntu, you can install cantata, which is a gui based mpd client. You will have to configure /etc/mpd.conf to interface with your dac directly. Since you have used linux for last 16-17 years, all you need to do is use the man pages for mpd and mpd.conf and you should be singing with your dac. You just need to install them



If you are so used to windows, then you can use a client like strawberry to play your music and directly interface with ALSA and play bit perfect music.

This is a good resource for things related to music on linux. Though this primarily for Raspberry PI devies, you can use the guide here for configuring mpd on any device.

Configure MPD – Linux Audio Foundation

linuxaudiofoundation.org

 

[Winter Green]

Pulseaudio means you will not get bit perfect. Pulseaudio is the mixer most Linux distributions use, and it likes to resample and mix the audio from multiple sources (leading to non-bit-perfect audio). Pulse audio is like the dreaded windows mixer, but better.


You need to use ALSA to interface with your DAC directly and not use any middleman in between. Take a look at

Bit Perfect Audio from Linux

I've never got a very clear answer or understanding if it's posible to configure ALSA to output a bit perfect copy of a playing music file (as the only sound playing), no resampling or mixing for supported output sample rates and bit rates. I wouldn't mind it to work like WASAPI in shared mode...

www.head-fi.org

IMHO, the best software to do music playback is the mpd daemon (which has absolutely no media management interface, absolute zero interface to show songs, play button, etc). It is just a daemon. You can however use many clients that talk to the mpd daemon. There is a command line client named mpc. Since you are using ubuntu, you can install cantata, which is a gui based mpd client. You will have to configure /etc/mpd.conf to interface with your dac directly. Since you have used linux for last 16-17 years, all you need to do is use the man pages for mpd and mpd.conf and you should be singing with your dac. You just need to install them



If you are so used to windows, then you can use a client like strawberry to play your music and directly interface with ALSA and play bit perfect music.

This is a good resource for things related to music on linux. Though this primarily for Raspberry PI devies, you can use the guide here for configuring mpd on any device.

Configure MPD – Linux Audio Foundation

linuxaudiofoundation.org

Hi mbhangui,

Thanks a ton! I can O/P higher quality audio from my linux machine!.

You reminded me about ALSA, which I had almost forgotten, and was trying to get Pulse Audio work as I needed (by editing /etc/pulse/daemon.conf .... sample format, sample rate, remixing etc., restarting it, rebooting the machine)

I followed the article you referenced, Installed gmusicbrowser and configured it to use ALSA -> Topping DAC and got it to work (mostly). There are minor issues with gmusicbrowser stalling and reporting 'device busy', but I can figure out a fix.

I just installed mpd and reviewed all the default config. I will edit the mpd.conf and see this route will be a more stable option.

It is strictly FOSS when it comes for home use, so I want to use linux and other FOSS stuff and it is awesome to see I can get it working to enjoy good quality music.

Thanks to you again!

 

[mbhangui]

Hi mbhangui,

Thanks a ton! I can O/P higher quality audio from my linux machine!.

You reminded me about ALSA, which I had almost forgotten, and was trying to get Pulse Audio work as I needed (by editing /etc/pulse/daemon.conf .... sample format, sample rate, remixing etc., restarting it, rebooting the machine)

I followed the article you referenced, Installed gmusicbrowser and configured it to use ALSA -> Topping DAC and got it to work (mostly). There are minor issues with gmusicbrowser stalling and reporting 'device busy', but I can figure out a fix.

I just installed mpd and reviewed all the default config. I will edit the mpd.conf and see this route will be a more stable option.

It is strictly FOSS when it comes for home use, so I want to use linux and other FOSS stuff and it is awesome to see I can get it working to enjoy good quality music.

Thanks to you again!

View attachment 70503

Now that you have installed mpd, install cantata

# apt-get install cantata

Then in the Cantata preferences add your linux machine like this. The Music folder should match the music_directory in /etc/mpd.conf

 

[mbhangui]

Since you are doing mpd first time, I'm sharing my mpd.conf. mpd is a complicated thing to setup first time. But it has the best output. Take a look at my config. It will help you setting your mpd.conf
in my case my music directory is /MDrive/Music. Change the user and group in /etc/mpd.conf to match your login id. On every reboot the directory /run/mpd and /var/log/mpd should be owned by your login id. You can modify /etc/tmpfiles.d/mpd.conf to achieve this.

You can take a look at all my files here

pistop/example_config/server/etc at master · mbhangui/pistop

Start/Stop services on all clients on server shutdown - pistop/example_config/server/etc at master · mbhangui/pistop

github.com

mpd.conf specifically is here

pistop/mpd.conf at master · mbhangui/pistop

Start/Stop services on all clients on server shutdown - pistop/mpd.conf at master · mbhangui/pistop

github.com