Yamamoto YDA 01 DAC

Charles1dad,

I have listened to 4 DACs in the last month or so. My favorite one, by far, is an older one a friend gave to me. He helped design it for a company and was given some of them which he modified to his own tastes (got rid of all electrolitics, used some "special" caps, beefed up power supply, etc). It doesn't have all the fancy # of the newer ones, it just sounds better. What is surprising it the low level detail. It's not just that it's better, I hear things that don't even exist in the others.

When I was researching, I read that Gordon Rankin (Wavelength) thinks that the manipulation of the stream up then down loses some low level detail. All I know is what I hear and that is: this older "simpler" DAC, with it's mods, sounds better than the newer ones I tried. I'm happy now and have no interest in trying way more expensive ones.

I will be interested in what you find with the Metrum. I like your system. It should reveal a lot.

Hi Onemug,
Your DAC sounds like quite a find. Is it NOS, multibit,R/2R or Delta Sigma based?
I love simple circuits coupled with strong power supplies.

UPS tracking now says my DAC will come tomorrow( good thing I`m a patient man).

Charles1dad,
My DAC is NOS. Not sure what it's based on. Power supply is strong and analog as opposed to a switching type.

You are a patient man. Love to read about your impressions of it, even out of the box. Hope it's a winner.

Well at last my Metrum Octave came today(praise the lord!)
Within 20 minutes I had it setup and playing.
To get right to the point, this thing is special,very special. Cees warns of initial brightness and says in several weeks the Octave settles in. This must be system dependent, the sound is quite extended but the high frequencies are refined and a bit sweet, but I don`t appreciate brightness,edge or harshness at all.

This DAC caught me off guard(despite the review and comparisons on 6 moons and the various forums)it is utterly transparent,crystal clear with very high resolution. But here`s the strange part, it as organic and fluid(already) as my Yamamoto YDA DAC with the same smooth-relaxed presentation but it`s clearly more dynamic and bigger sounding, larger scale and noticably faster. This was an unexpected finding at this very early stage.

The Yamamoto is a top performing DAC that has bettered many other digital sources with it`s natural character and tone. I`ve absolutely have enjoyed this DAC and felt it was worth every penny, 2,500 USD in Feb-2010.I must be honest, the Octave is just simply superior(believe me that`s saying something!).I listened to Sarah Vaughn, John Coltrane-Johnny Hartman and then Miles Davis. These were examples of very often played CDs I know so well and have heard in many different systems.
The strong sense of living breathing palpable performers in your space "exceeds" the Yamamoto(which did this so convincingly).

The Octave must have a lower noise floor and or higher S/N ratio, venue nuance,ambience and micro details are rendered on a higher level.
I`m not trying to beatup the Yamamoto(it`s provided me with much musical enjoyment) but in just 3 hours of listening,all of these observations were so apparent.

Summary, Exceptional refined tone and timbre(rich but not fat or bloated)
Beautiful overtones and harmonic preservation(cymbals sound so real and natural, wow!)
Superb transparent and clear sound, no veils at all.
Very high detail level and resolution, yet very organic at the same time. Really similar to the Coincident preamp and SET amplifier.

Maybe after such a long wait I just got lucky, it fits so well with my current components.
All listening was with plain old 16/44.1 Redbook and it`s the best CD sound I`ve ever heard in my system(without question). I`m going to the RMAF in a few days and will run the Octave 24/7 while I`m away.
Best Regards,

Thanks for the update Charles. This is one I would really like to hear in the 1k DAC sweepstakes, it sounds very promising.