Ontic Oren

Once I get started, it’s hard to stop. After picking up the NHT, I of course had to look around on the internet some more, and opened my eyes up to the world of DACs. (head-fi.org is pure evil. If you value your wallet, do not visit.) Not content to wonder, I ordered two DACs. One was almost the same price as the NHT PVC, the other twice as expensive.

NHT PVC PC

What: A passive volume control. Simply attenuates whatever is fed into it. In home computer use, the claim is keeping your computer audio at maximum, and then using this analog controller provides better audio quality. Includes ground loop eliminator.

Connections: RCA in and out. Hook up to monitors only. No power. No headphone.

Aural: Compared with direct, it’s honestly hard to say. In my case, the ground loop noise was BAD without this. With, it’s clean and nice. I’ll call this baseline, but I honestly don’t know if it sounds better barring the ground loop noise.

Purchase: ListenUp.com. $179 delivered.

Fubar III

What: A small little integrated USB DAC and amp. Front features a big smooth pot, headphone jack, and two LEDs. Bottom blue led is power. Top led indicates active audio source. Green when active. Red when unplugged or computer is sleeping. The bottom blue one is so bright it’s distracting. 2-3x brighter than the green/red one. At eye level, it’s almost blinding. Off-axis, it’s just damn annoying. It’s always on.

Connections: USB to computer for DAC. Just plug in, and the mac automatically routes audio out to it. Truly PnP. Provides line-level ouputs as well as headphone jack. Headphone and line-out are active at same time, i.e. plugging in headphones does NOT turn off line-out audio. I left speakers always plugged in, but turned off when not in use. Unplugged headphones when not in use. 12V DC. Includes cheapo wall wart. Offers upgrade for another $100. Didn’t purchase upgrade.

Aural: A clear step up from the PVC PC and iMac. Enhanced, broader and clearer imaging. Better overall definition across the range. Slightly less boomy sounding on the NHT M-00 (though it’s still there, and annoying me more and more). Getting into serious audio realm. Check out this great review of the NHT/Fubar combo for more details. He does a better job than I, so I’ll leave it to him.

Other: Every 20 min, I’m getting audio drop out and stutter for 1 second. Annoying, and not sure what’s causing it yet.

Purchase: Audiophile Products. $238.97 delivered to California. Although in Canada, cheapest shipping took exactly 1 week door to door. Between this and the PVC, it’s a NO brainer. Dump the PVC, get the Fubar III instead.

Apogeee Duet

What: Firewire AD/DA. Targeted to musicians. Mac only. Level meters and big old knob on top. Build like a brick. Perfect fit in a mac environment from build and looks.

Connections: XLR mic input, 1/4″ instrument input, 1/4″ monitor out, 1/4″ headphone jack. The 1/4″ monitor is running straight into my NHTs. First, I set the levels from a test signal to 94db (84db with -10db test signal) on both the duet and the Fubar. Since the NHT have both 1/4″ and RCA in, I was able to leave both DAC hooked up, and switch in the Sound control panel back and forth.

Aural: I A/B’d this with the Fubar for about 6 hours of listning. Music included:

• Joshua Judges Ruth by Lyle Lovett
• Speakerboxxx / The Love Below by Outkast
• Don’t Mess With The Dragon by Ozomatli
• O by Damien Rice

plus a smattering of Paul Simon, Imogen Heap, AC/DC, and Vampire Weekend.

Compared with the step from the PVC to the Fubar, the difference between the Fubar and the Duet is relatively small. The first thing I noticed is an unveiling (sorry Tara, not quite an unleashing) of the music. A layer of gauze has been removed: the soundstage is broader, the layers of the music clearer, the tone more balanced. There’s a sense of space that emerges in the Duet that is totally missing from the Fubar. Interestingly, the Duet is less sibilant than the Fubar. I can’t tell which is more “accurate”, but I am preferring the Duet.

Unlike the PVC/Fubar comparison, which it instantly recognizable as better, the Duet requires more careful listening to appreciate. Further, I’m very aware of the price bias I have. My wife and I setup a little ABX test, and we both could actually tell the difference. In her words, “the duet sounds clearer”, which is just about the perfect description.

Other: Apogee has done a great job integrating this into the Mac. The volume control is unified – changing the system volume with the keyboard is the same as turning the wheel. Turning the wheel displays the volume on screen. It feels like a part of the normal flow.

The Duet is actually designed for input – instruments, mics, etc. I am NOT the target audience here. I’m hoping to use it for some podcasting work moving forward as well, but frankly that’s just icing on the cake.

Purchase: Sweetwater. $495 delivered.

What am I keeping?

The Apogee Duet. It sounds better. It’s integrated. It doesn’t skip every now and then. It has input, which I can at least pretend I’ll be using at some point. Plus, it looks damn good on the desk, and doesn’t have those insanely bright LEDs. The Fubar is sitting in full on sun right now, and the blue LED is STILL too bright.

For those headphones users – I compared the Fubar and Duet with my Sennheiser 580 for an hour or so as well. I couldn’t balance the levels very easily and thus can’t really tell to accuratly. I’d say the Duet sound better, same comments as above. Perhaps better bass and cleaner power delivery.

Hi, my name is Oren, and I’m a borderline audiophile. It used to be really bad, with new speakers every few months, CD players sitting on sandbags, leadshot in the speaker stands. Luckily, my wife and her style sense have cleared me of much of that. But I’m still at heart an audio snob, if not phile. After suffering for years with my Microsoft Digital Sound System 80, I finally broke down last month and picked up a new pair of speakers for my computer.

Allow me a digression: I was flipping through AudioAdvisor’s catalog one day, and saw this big “SALE” notice next to the aforementioned speakers. Save 38%!!!! Big flashy colors!!!! I did a quick internet search before buying: too bad they’re still 25% more expensive than you can find for a “normal” price at ListenUp. In a nice circle-of-life type thing, ListenUp is the CO based store that nurtured my original addiction back in college. I would spend hours hanging out there, talkign to the sales guys, playing with the toys, going at least one weekend a month. I probably spent <$1,000 in the four years, and they never treated me as anything less than a great customer. I was ecstatic to buy from them again.

Back to the speakers. I picked up a pair of the NHT M-00 (affectionately called the Moo), the S-00 and the PVC PC on top of it all. While the speakers and sub are self evident, what’s the PVC PC? There are those who claim that adjusting the volume on your computer limits it’s quality. The PVC allows you to keep the audio at 11 on your computer, and adjust the volume in the analog world. Plus, you can use line-out sources (i.e. the iPod) and not blast your ears.

ListenUp was originally out of stock on the PVC. My initial hookup was a mini->RCA into the sub, then balanced from the sub->satellite. There was a ton of groud loop noise, enough that the auto-power would never kick in, and the speakers would all stay on unless manually powered off. The quality while playing was pretty good besides the noise, but I didn’t listen super critically.

Two days later, the PVC PC was in place. I’m now running the mini->RCA into the PVC, RCA->RCA from PVC to sub, and balanced from sub -> satellite. As it turns out, the PVC is also a ground loop eliminator. There is NO noise at all, and my cables are crossing power lines 20 times up and down, left and right. Silent.

Enough yammering, how does it sound? Amazing. I can not get over how much better this sounds. There is a level of clarity and musicality I’ve never expected from my computer. Compared with my Sennheiser 580, the Moo are more analytical, less crystal clear, but somehow more engaging (probably cause the physical bass). Sure, the cans are better, but not enough that I really care. The M00’s are involving, accurate, fun, detailed, crisp, natural. With the S00 there’s some bass, nothing below 50hz to speak of, but enough to annoy the dog.

In my room, they are far from tonally flat. Possibly because of the layout (tucked into a corner, on a desk), I get this huge +5-10 db (as measured with my rat-shack hand held SPL meter) mid-bass bump around 100hz. It’s noticeable in listening, and even at times a bit annoying. It’s cloys up the sound, almost a bit of pollution in this otherwise accurate gem. None of the settings on the cross-over have had a positive effect – I’ve minimized the impact as much as possible. Don’t let that scare you away though, I’m not listening to the 580’s any time soon while I’m sitting here! I really just love this setup.

I can honestly say this has totally changed my listening habits. I can’t wait to sit in front of my computer now. I’m working more, I’m sure as hell listening to music more, and most importantly, I’m enjoying the hell out of it. Every song just sounds great (or terrible, if that’s what they intended). Yes, it’s a lot of money to spend on computer audio, but I’m using it more than my home setup, it’s significantly cheaper, and frankly it sounds better for stereo music listening. Highly highly recommended for anyone looking for great computer audio.

Next up – A friend has the Adam A7 and Mbox setup. All the cool kids scoff at the NHT (it’s not even sold at sweetwater) and drool over the A7. At some point, one of us will bring the other’s speakers over so we can compare. In the meantime, I have NO regrets, and strongly encourage anyone out there to give these a spin.

Disclaimer: My source so far has been 192KBPS VBR MP3 (or higher) from either the Great Re-Rip of 2006 (that’s a blog post for the future) or Amazon MP3 store. For some out there, that’s enough to invalidate any thoughts I have, as clearly my ears are crap if I’m not listening to FLAC/Apple Loseless/whatever with some fancy external DAC.