Despite the low price this looks interesting. Those HF-ers will probably be all over this one given its price. Can anyone provide some insight on the selection of parts?

Stereophile: Oh Nose, Not Another One!

"The Music Hall dac25.2 ($600) uses an Electro-Harmonix 6922 tube, a Texas Instruments PCM1796 24-bi/192kHz DAC chip, a TI SRC4192 Asynchronous sample-rate converter (with a high-precision active crystal oscillator master clock), and four digital inputs (S/PDIF, TOSLINK, XLR, and USB). It sports re-clocking and user-adjustable upsampling (96kHz or 192kHz). It outputs analog via XLR or RCA."

Those HF-ers will probably be all over this one given its price.

I think that's probably a safe call.

The PCM1796 isn't TI's best DAC, but it's not far off. The SRC4192 specs out really well, it's among their best SRCs. I don't know a thing about the tubes.

Of course, all of that has very little to do with how the unit sounds. A poor implementation can introduce interference and distortion that will blow away the low noise floor inherent in the parts.

This DAC got reviewed by Sam Tellig in the August '09 issue of Stereophile.

But what's far more interesting, hilarious, and awesome is the Manufacturer's Comments response to Tellig's review. I mean, check this out!

Since Sam deems it necessary to quote John Maynard Keynes, I thought it appropriate to start my response with a more relevant quote from that great economist: "Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on the unthinking."

Sam is a Luddite, and an unthinking one at that.

The dac25.2 is designed specifically to listen to music on or through a computer. The USB input at least hints of this. The instructions tell you this. But what does Sam do? He uses a CD player as his source. There is nothing wrong with that, except that it misses the whole point of USB DACs. Like it or not (and I don't), people are storing their music on computers, and as a lover of music and a manufacturer, it is incumbent on me and others in our industry to help retrieve that music and make it sound good - thus the dac25.2.

He did say that "the dac25.2 sounded especially swell with Internet radio."

Surprise fucking surprise. It was designed for that! What he should have done is listened to music through the iTunes software on his Mac and not through his aged (probably acquired for free) CD player. The beauty of our DAC is that it really makes sense of music stored in digital media. It works well with that whore of compression, MP3, and soars, like the lark ascending, with uncompressed files.

Really, Editor, is this the best you can do? Don't you have any new, young writers who get it? Am I doomed to suffer the rantings of an aged buffoon?

I guess so.

Damn and ouch.

I like it. I don't know anything about audiomag politics, but does this mean they've screwed themselves out of future reviews?

They really published this? Good god...

It's tongue-in-cheek. The review was very favorable and Tellig and the MH dude are old buddies.

I like it. I don't know anything about audiomag politics, but does this mean they've screwed themselves out of future reviews?

Unlikely, unless Music Hall stops putting up ads on Stereophile.

It's tongue-in-cheek. The review was very favorable and Tellig and the MH dude are old buddies.

That's it, they're just having fun

It's tongue-in-cheek. The review was very favorable and Tellig and the MH dude are old buddies.

I dunno, I read the review and the general gist that I got was that the DacMagic wiped the floor with 25.2.

I dunno, I read the review and the general gist that I got was that the DacMagic wiped the floor with 25.2.

Yep, but the review didn't compare the USB inputs of the two units. The USB implementation on the DACMagic is not as good as its SPDIF inputs. My guess is the results would have been opposite using the USB input on both units. However, given the past history of the two protagonists, I read it as tongue-in-cheek also.

Still, that's a damn funny response.

So, who is going to take one for the team on this DAC?

You know, I like to reward companies I like by partaking of their wares. So I will, definitely, at some point in the not-too-near future.

Anyone who calls Tellig a luddite to his face -- tongue-in-cheek or not -- is okay in my book.

I think it's an unwise leap of faith to assume your entire readership knows this much back-story.

Really though, how many people actually still read Stereophile? I mean sure the subscription numbers are probably decent but that's only because they keep giving it away....

I do. I think Asr and Hopstretch and Nate do, too, based on this page.

I subscribe, and sometimes read it

i read stereophile. it's cheap.

Man, how the fuck am I supposed to know this guy is kidding without smilies? Anybody who's the least bit computer-savvy knows to use smilies when they're kidding.

Edit: alternatively, he could've thrown in an LOL or two.

Maybe everyone else was supposed to take it seriously, and Sam Tellig was meant to think it was a joke.

I subscribe, and sometimes read it

Ditto

Ditto

moi aussi

i read stereophile. it's cheap.

I get a free online subscription. The music reviews are nice

that's an amazingly awesome response!