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Rega DAC vs. EE Minimax vs. Centrance vs. W4S 2

This is a summary of results comparing the Rega DAC against the W4S 2, Centrance Dacmini, and the Eastern Electric Minimax (First version).

The Rega has been running a signal since last Saturday, so according to some reports it may be about 150 hours from sounding it's best. The comparison to the W4S was done with a fully broken in Rega from Signature Sound. Powercord is a Pangea AC-14 (nothing fancy). The main sources were a Oppo DV981 and Macbook pro. System is Merlin TSM-MXr on Skylan stands, Manley Stingray II, MJ Acoustics 150 MK2 sub, Cardas wires.

Vs. Centrance DACmini
First of all...this thing is cool! It's perfect for a headphone system and it's form-factor matches the MACmini. Fed by the Oppo it provided fantastic midrange and smooth highs, but bass was less defined and a bit muddy. There seemed to be just a bit more glare from the DACmini as well, but it had a deeper soundstage than the Rega. The Rega had bass well handled and the soundstage was quite wide, especially on live recordings where it did a great job of capturing the scope of the venue. The owner of the DACmini and I agreed that that it had the Rega beat by a small margin in soundstage, but the Rega was the winner with better bass detail and less glare. Any change of cables or speaker or amp could probably swing the results differently.

Vs. Eastern Electric Minimax
I was excited to hear this unit since it's gotten a ton of good reviews. But...wow, my system did not agree with it. Here was (I assume) a good example of poor synergy. The Minimax sounded overly thick in the midrange (less so with the tube switched out) and this quality made it difficult to focus on it's clearly sweet high end. We tried it with some cheaper AQ cables, but this issue did not go away. My friend says it's quite stunning in his system and I don't doubt it, but in my system it was "thick" much like the modified Jolida 100a CDP I once owned.

Vs. W4S DAC 2
This unit was well burned in and it went up against the Demo Rega I auditioned in my system. The W4S 2 had a Signal powercord while the Rega had it's stock cord. I reviewed the Rega DAC in the review section and I have since concluded that the Rega's "less is more" design approach led to it's superior performance with Redbook CDs. It won mainly based on soundstage where it provided a deeper effect, while the W4S 2 floated a image well, but it was less dimensional. The W4S 2 seemed to extract a bit more detail, but also sounded too bright on some tracks. Once again we concluded that they were both doing a fine job and a change of associated gear could skew results differently. The W4S is certainly more versatile.

After listening to these units in my system and playing with some very pricey CDP's in recent months I've concluded that DAC's and CDP's offer the smallest upgrade range. Good DACs and CDP's are very close in performance so be suspicious when someone says one unit blows away another. As others have pointed out we get into some seriously expensive "diminishing returns" with this gear. I feel that the Rega (and I truly love the Centrance as well) offers great performance in the mid priced DAC arena. It bested the Audio Aero prima I tried and has better soundstage that several other units around the 5K mark. How it performs in a given system will be mostly a measure of the synergy with your other components and nothing definitive should be assumed by reading these findings or any other!

Cheers,

Rob
robbob
tubegroover
2,320 posts
 
"The Minimax sounded overly thick in the midrange"

Just curious about that comment Rob. Do you mean that instrument lines were not clearly delineated? I have never heard the original but I can say that this is not evident with the Plus. I concur that the upper frequency extension and air is there with the Plus as well. There is a bit of a downside to this though, on some closely miked recordings I do note some glare, more so with the Seimens silver plate which seems to highlight this more than the other tubes but on the good recordings it can be quite stunning.

I have my friend coming over tomorrow with his W4S. We are going to switch out with each other for a couple of days as well as doing some brief AB comparisons tomorrow. Thank you for taking the time to give us your impressions of these DACs in your system, nice review. I do agree that the differences in these DACs are system and taste dependent more than anything else.
robbob OP
273 posts
 
Tubegroover,

The sense of "thickness" was quite subtle. It was mainly effecting vocals and rendering them less real sounding to our ears, a sort of tubby quality. As I mentioned before I heard this same issue with my previous system which was based on Magnepan 1.6 with a Rogue Metis Preamp and Odyssey Stratos amp. Adding a Jolida CDP produced a slight bloat to the upper midrange that I did not care for.

Again, I want to stress that this was fairly subtle and the owner of the EE does not hear it on his system. He also owns a ARC Dac costing much more than these units and prefers the EE & W4S DAC 2 over it. As I always say...synergy is just about everything; the system, the room and the whole mess has to work together correctly with each link doing it's job.

Rob
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,823 posts
 
Thanks for your review and I agree with your findings on the Centrance except for the glare you heard with it. Might it be something else in the equation? I only ask because I've experienced none in my system.

Clarity is its strong suit but the bass does lack some heft yet it makes up for it in detail, definition, pitch and tone. It would be nice to see a statement product, of sorts, with a robust power supply. There's definitely something about it that makes me want to just listen and stop analyzing.

Thanks, again, for the comparo.

All the best,
Nonoise
robbob OP
273 posts
 
Nonoise,
I really like the Centrance and the glare that I spoke of was only evident a couple of times. A swap of cables or more burn in (it only had about 100 hours on it) might easily eliminate the issue. The Rega also had some glare, especially with the inexpensive Pangea power cord, but it's now mostly gone. The Centrance is right in there with the Rega, besting it in soundstage depth and as you point out it's clarity...for us resolution...was outstanding, perhaps a bit clinical compared to the Rega, but truly a matter of taste. The Rega won for us because it seemed to just be doing everything really well right down to the lowest frequencies. Reading the comments of other owners you'll see that some equate it's sound with a turntable. I wouldn't go that far, but it's certainly is an "impression" I agree with, if not in absolute terms.
If I snuck into your house and swapped out the Rega for the Centrance I'd lay odds you'd never hear a difference. That's how close they are. If I had a good set of headphones I'd probably buy the Centrance over the Rega without a second thought.

There is a "rumor" that Rega will now release a transport/CDP in the same size as the Rega DAC to match. Adding that to the Rega DAC will eclipse the Saturn player and I expect some small improvements overall. Which of course should remind us that I fed all of the DACs with an Oppo DVD player, which might be considered by some to be a weak link at the very least.

Rob
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,823 posts
 
Rob,

Thanks for the 'clarity' in your response. I, too, had some brightness that vanished after break in but I forget just how long it took (maybe 200 hours or so).

As for the Oppo's might being the weak link, I think you may be onto something there. There was a time when I used my Oppo DV-983H as a transport and determined that it was holding things back a bit. It made sense to use it as a jack-of-all-trades (CDs & DVDs) but moving on validated any concerns I had about its limits.

As much as my interested has been piqued by your mentioning of Rega's upcoming model, I'm still going to hold out to see what music servers are out there that aren't too dear in price. I say this as I heard the Centrance on the digital outs of a top of the line Ayon CDP and it lost none of its body and extension but just got a bit clearer, allowing more of that clarity and resolution, which really surprised me. Maybe tubes are the way to go when partnering with the Centrance.

All the best,
Nonoise
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