0:02 All right. This is a video you really do
0:04 not want to miss because I've listened
0:07 with a couple of my friends to over 10
0:10 DACs within a span of less than 24
0:11 hours. So, I'm going to talk about the
0:14 sound difference of these 10 DACs. And
0:15 if you hang up till the end of the
0:18 video, I'm going to be talking about all
0:20 the exciting new products that I'm
0:23 actually developing and also some of the
0:26 products that coming up that I'm testing
0:28 as well. There's some really cool stuff
0:30 that you probably don't want to miss.
0:32 First, which DACs did we listen to? We
0:36 listened to the X30 by Gustard, the Ever
0:42 Solo Z10, the DMP-A6 also by Ever Solo,
0:44 the Denafrips Terminator. We also
0:47 listened to the WiiM Pro, WiiM Ultra,
0:50 the Fosi Audio S3, and the Arylic
0:53 LE-100. Also, we listened to the
0:57 all-in-one as well by Ever Solo. And we
0:59 also listened to my Gustard TD-1 DAC.
1:01 Basically, we didn't just like listen to
1:04 try to compare A and B. So, we had
1:07 things set at the same level volume.
1:09 I'm very lucky with my preamplifier. I
1:12 could actually preset each
1:14 compensation if there's any volume
1:16 differences. And this way we can listen
1:19 to A and B. The first night we actually
1:22 was one of my friends we listened to all
1:23 the big guys.
1:25 He actually brought his Gustard DAC 30
1:27 with him and thank you very much for
1:30 doing that. And we were able to compare
1:33 for example, the DAC 30 to the Ever Solo
1:36 Z10 cuz these are very comparable DACs.
1:38 We compared them to the Terminator by
1:41 Denafrips and to my Gustard TD-1 DAC.
1:43 And we kept switching back and forth to
1:46 see which one sounded better. Let's
1:48 start from the top. Let's compare to the
1:50 big guys first cuz this is what probably
1:52 most people are interested in. And
1:55 between the
1:59 If we compare the Ever Solo Z10 to the
2:02 Gustard X30, for example, these two are
2:05 very very close, neck and neck together.
2:06 Uh they're very very similar on the
2:09 inside. They both have oven clocks
2:11 inside. They both have very good power
2:14 supplies. Both have very good output stages.
2:15 stages.
2:18 And they differ that one has AKM series
2:20 chip, the other one has an ESS series
2:23 chip. They have four of them each. So,
2:25 these are pretty uh you know, and
2:28 they're about roughly similar uh price
2:32 range, give and take. Uh so, between
2:34 those two, it was very tough to pick one.
2:35 one.
2:36 Uh uh
2:38 they're very very close. If you have one
2:40 or the other, don't go rushing to buy
2:41 the other one because they are very
2:44 close. If I were to go and buy one, I
2:46 would probably pick the Ever Solo Z10
2:48 because it has better
2:51 uh UI interface. It has better
2:54 connectivity, a little bit. And it was a little
2:56 little
2:59 For me, it sounded a tiny bit smoother.
3:01 My friend dis- disagrees because, of
3:05 course, again, he owns the X30. I own
3:07 the Ever Solo Z10. But, like I said,
3:09 they are very close, and either one you
3:13 have, like I said, you'll be very happy.
3:14 Uh now, we compared those to the
3:18 Denafrips uh Terminator. It's a slightly
3:20 different sound. So, now you're trading
3:22 a little bit of uh
3:26 that crisp, sharp detail to a little bit
3:29 of a slightly more smoother all around
3:30 DAC. Uh
3:32 if I was to listen for hours and hours,
3:34 I'll probably pick the Denafrips
3:36 Terminator. If I'm going to listen to
3:38 about half an hour to an hour, I would
3:41 probably pick the Ever Solo Z10. Now, we
3:44 also compared them to the Mytek Z1 DAC.
3:46 I have to say, this is not a comparison.
3:48 You have to be in DIY. You have to be
3:50 willing to spend uh you know, quite a
3:53 bit of money, and also not much than the
3:56 other ones, but for people saying DIY,
3:57 oh, you're going to build something for
3:59 a couple hundred bucks. No, you're still
4:02 spending couple grands at least, but at
4:04 least you're going to have a sound that
4:07 you cannot buy anywhere else.
4:10 The Gustard DDC has this open, uh, you
4:14 know, imaging. It's just has a smoother
4:16 finish to the sound, and also the
4:19 holographic 3D imaging is just you never
4:22 hear it than as as the other DAC.
4:23 Uh, if you're not familiar with my
4:25 Gustard DDC, there's a few videos, I'll
4:27 put them in the link, but basically,
4:29 it's based on the
4:33 uh, TDA 1541A chip, but not in any way.
4:35 There's so many you can buy on eBay, but
4:37 this one was really sought from the
4:39 ground up, takes good power supplies,
4:41 and has a lot of features. I'm not going
4:43 to go on and on, but anyway, that was if
4:45 you want to DIY DAC,
4:47 that would be the way I would go. But
4:49 again, I am biased, so forget what I'm
4:51 saying here.
4:54 Let's talk about the other DACs. And
4:56 there's a few here that are three close
4:59 together, and these are the mid-tier.
5:01 And uh, some of them are slightly like
5:03 an all-in-one thing. So, we have the
5:06 Arylic LP-100,
5:10 the Fosi S3, and the Ever Solo Play. All
5:11 three, they vary a little bit. I have
5:13 reviews about them if you want to listen
5:16 to, but they all have very good sound
5:19 for that price, and also for being able
5:23 to do a lot of things all in one box.
5:26 The Fosi and the Arylic both came very
5:29 close together. The Arylic has slightly
5:33 wider, uh, imaging. The S3 by Fosi Audio
5:36 has a slightly smoother sound, but
5:38 otherwise, they're very, very close. The
5:42 Ever Solo all-in-one, this is a bargain
5:44 for any of you wants an all-in-one
5:47 budget. It has an amplifier as well. It
5:50 sounds good, has good UI. the means user
5:53 interface, like a software and all that.
5:56 It has great connectivity. It's just
5:58 works flawlessly. And even if you own a
6:00 CD player, there's an option for that.
6:03 For some of you that want just an
6:05 all-in-one box, this is a no-brainer.
6:08 Now, if you don't want to spend close to
6:12 8 700 dollars, the Arylic or the Fosi S3
6:15 come a little bit at a cheaper price.
6:17 I think the Fosi S3 is a pretty good
6:20 bargain cuz it is the lowest price and
6:23 still delivers a good bang for the buck.
6:25 But, can't go wrong with any of those
6:28 three. Now, the DMP-A6 is a little
6:30 bracket of a price little higher, so
6:34 it's around 900 US dollars. And it's
6:36 actually a combination of a DAC and
6:40 streamer. It's a beautiful unit and has
6:43 that EverSolo user interface. The sound
6:45 of it is again sits in between the that
6:47 10 and the X6
6:50 and the reps and and the lower tier,
6:52 which is the Fosis and the Arylic. Now,
6:54 when it comes to the WiiM Pro and the
6:57 WiiM Ultra, these two I used to love,
7:00 but I think they've been surpassed now.
7:03 The WiiM Pro and the WiiM Ultra, I
7:06 by far prefer the WiiM Pro because with
7:07 the WiiM Pro you can change the power
7:10 supply and improve the sound
7:13 dramatically. With the WiiM Ultra,
7:15 you're stuck with that switching power
7:18 supply, everything's crammed so close.
7:21 The sound it just doesn't deliver. It's
7:23 great, it's a beautiful box, a beautiful
7:25 screen, everything, but the WiiM Pro, if
7:28 you were to choose between the two, save
7:30 half the money and get the WiiM Pro. You
7:31 won't get the display, but you're going
7:34 to get a much better sound. Uh we're not
7:36 talking huge sound. Remember, all these
7:39 are just small. Most people that have,
7:41 you know, a budget speaker won't even
7:43 know the difference between any of these
7:45 DACs. But once you get a little bit more
7:47 refined taste
7:48 than and good speakers, good
7:50 amplification, then you start to hear
7:53 the difference. So, if you are starting
7:55 out, don't go start buying the biggest
7:59 expensive DAC. Start by buying good
8:02 amplification, good speakers, and then
8:03 go into the DAC. Otherwise, you're not
8:06 going to hear a huge difference.
8:08 Now, I'm going to go back to the higher
8:11 tier, which is the Ever Solo that 10,
8:14 the Gustard DAC-X 30, and the Denafrips
8:17 Terminator. These three, they all need
8:19 streamers. Uh
8:21 they cannot function alone. Actually,
8:23 the Gustard DAC-X 3, I believe, has a
8:25 built-in streamer, but it's not very
8:28 good. As soon as we connected it to the
8:32 Ever Solo T8 streamer, it just got a lot
8:34 better. So, if you own one of those,
8:36 uh the Gustard DAC-X 3, I would
8:40 seriously invest in the um Ever Solo T8.
8:41 I have nothing to do with them, not
8:44 affiliated with these guys, but I just
8:46 love their products. Actually, the T8 is
8:49 becoming my de facto streamer for pretty
8:52 much everything uh these days. I just
8:55 love the user interface, love the sound,
8:57 and the connectivity. It's just you
8:59 cannot beat it. So, bear in mind, you're
9:02 not just going to buy a DAC. You still
9:04 have to go splurge. So, if you buy
9:05 Denafrips Terminator, you're spending
9:08 6,000 uh US dollars. You're still going
9:13 to go spend close to 1,500 US for to get
9:15 the uh the streamer as well. You By the
9:18 time you factor taxes and uh tariffs and
9:20 blah blah blah and
9:22 uh and all these extra charges, you're
9:25 looking well into the 8 to close to
9:28 9,000 dollars. So,
9:30 uh keep all this stuff in mind. So,
9:32 we're talking a quite a bit of a
9:34 difference. If you are building my
9:37 Gapsule TD1 DAC, yes, you can have a way
9:39 sound, but it requires quite a bit of
9:41 knowledge. You need to be Don't can't
9:44 just jump in and build one of those. So,
9:46 you have to have some knowledge. It's
9:47 going to take a quite a bit of
9:50 experience and expertise to do it. A lot
9:52 of parts you have to source from here
9:54 and there. So, it's not like a one
9:56 thing. And you have to know a little
9:58 bit. I have a lot of videos tell you
10:00 what to do, but you have to have built
10:02 something in your life, uh soldered
10:05 something. You can't just jump in and
10:06 and and and do it. Some people have
10:09 tried and eventually they succeeded.
10:12 Also, uh you can build those with uh
10:15 built-in streamer like a Raspberry Pi.
10:17 And you but you have to invest in a
10:19 software like Roon or Volumio. Or you
10:22 could link it to the Ever Solo T8
10:25 directly. And we have videos about that
10:27 in my Patreon channel. And uh it's
10:30 actually uh gives you a really, really
10:32 good sound. If you want to build
10:34 something, I have a website at
10:36 gapster.ca. And there's a lot of links. TD1
10:42 uh links, there's everything you need to
10:44 know about how to build them. Tons of
10:46 videos, tons of links. Uh so, I would
10:48 start in there. I'll put a link of that
10:51 in the description below. Videos are
10:54 coming up. The clock switcher is finally here.
10:56 here.
10:58 Works beautifully and actually made me
11:01 discover some amazing things I would not
11:03 have discovered otherwise. So, there
11:05 will be a video coming up on my clock
11:07 switcher that lets you actually compare
11:10 in real life in a blind test different
11:13 clocks to see which ones work best for
11:16 your system. My gapster TDA1541A
11:19 interface is actually been out for a
11:22 little while now. And we've had some
11:24 really excellent uh feedback from
11:27 different users. Everybody just loves it
11:30 and loves how it improves the sound.
11:32 Another video coming up, one of the best
11:35 output stages I have have actually
11:40 tested. This is by WB manufacturer and I
11:44 actually make some amazing amplifiers
11:47 and tubes are very very knowledgeable in
11:49 the tube domain. So there will be a
11:53 video just on this output stage. Another
11:56 video that is coming up, this is a
11:59 passive preamplifier. I always wanted
12:02 one of those. This is from AliExpress
12:04 and it is extremely promising. There'll
12:07 be a very interesting video just on
12:09 that. If you are
12:11 into DIY, you might want to
12:13 [clears throat] join our Patreon where
12:15 we talk about things we don't talk about
12:18 here. We talk about how you connect the
12:20 for example some really good streamers
12:23 using their direct I2S signal into for
12:25 example the gaps for TD1 DAC and get
12:28 some really excellent sound from that.
12:31 Still using that user interface that
12:33 they have and we also talk about things
12:35 that we don't talk about on the YouTube
12:37 channel. And you get to see what other
12:39 people are building some pre-amazing
12:42 stuff all the way from a lot of, you
12:44 know, there's no shouting and screaming
12:46 and fights that you see on the regular
12:49 forums. And that's why I prefer it that
12:51 way. It just keeps things low-key and
12:54 peaceful. I'll put links about my
12:55 Patreon channel in the description
12:57 below. It's fairly inexpensive,
13:00 $1 or $3 a month. That's all it is. And
13:02 there'll be some videos here in the
13:04 corners if you like to see one of them
13:07 related somewhat to this video. There'll
13:08 be a speaker in the middle if you like
13:11 to subscribe. That's one good way to
13:13 support the channel indirectly without
13:15 spending anything. And thank you for
13:18 watching and I hope to see you again.
