Looks promising, with price point <1000€, 8 channel, balanced outputs, volume control, a contender to the 3500$+ Exasound E38.
https://www.oktoresearch.com/dac8pro.htm
There is a thread on diyaudio where the designers are active.
AudioScienceReview just measured it as the DAC with the best SINAD ever!
I hope to get one for testing in a month or so, let’s see how it goes against my Exasound E28…
Keen to hear your review. Particularly for enabling a digital crossover. Or is your use for surround sound?
As the stereo version has a Pi in it I wonder if it is possible to use roon?
My main use is digital crossover 3-way stereo.
It uses Volumio for now, Roon Bridge can be easily installed on it, so yes. Ideal would be to have it preinstalled and certified Roon Ready, I don’t know about the cost but to me it seems a good idea commercially, given the large Roon user base.
Assuming the Pi inside (in the Stereo version) will work as a Roon Bridge, will it be able to sync the volume with Roon (so that the user controls the volume in Roon and it actually controls the volume of the DAC -and vise versa)?
From my limited knowledge, I understand that this volume synchronisation works for USB only? What about a DAC connected via LAN?
My review of the DAC8PRO is here https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-and-measurements-of-okto-dac8-8ch-dac-amp.7064/post-310548
Thanks, hopefully the Stereo version will be available for order soon!
Stereo version up for sale: https://www.oktoresearch.com/dac8stereo.htm#!/~/
Is running Roon on the internal Raspberry Pi possible?
Yippee it’s out.
I have tested the 8 channel version and SQ was very very good for the price point.
Yes Roon Bridge can be run on the PI inside with Ropieee https://ropieee.org/ or DietPi.
It can be used for Roon Core (not powerful enough, not even compiled for ARM).
A very strong proposal for a good streamer+DAC combo at <1500 €.
Will the volume also sync between the Okto and Roon?
I’d love to hear people’s reactions to the DAC8 PRO multichannel version and its function with Roon.
Does it show up as a single audio device or multiple devices? Have you been successful outputting multichannel DSD?
How does it sound with multichannel music?
Show as a single device. Max output is PCM 192kHz or DSD128, 8 channels.
Is it a good quarantine toy?
Is there a volume control that can be controlled via Roon?
Hi all,
Seriously thinking of pulling the trigger on this so I can utilize roon for both stereo and multichannel, it’s ashame I can’t use my oppo 205 through roon to leverage multichannel but that’s for another thread.
So I will have this in a system that also has a av8802a pre pro, so I had to figure out the switching of the rca connections to the amps, this I have figured out with a zektor switch I snagged from eBay.
Currently I am handling this for stereo with a parasound p5 preamp that has theater bypass and its own bass management.the analog outs if my oppo feed this from a ropiee.
What I don’t have figured out is how I will handle bass management with the okto. The marantz does this on board and my oppo was able to do it on board as well, I don’t see any mention of crossover with the okto.
Does the okto handle crossover of all 8 channels allowing me to send bass to the subs? Can I do this within roon on the software side, if so will the sound quality suffer?
Really want to buy this dac but I need this last piece, I feel if I impliment this with out proper bass management I won’t be happy with the out come.
Any feedback would be appreciated.
You can use the Okto with your AV8802A and if you do convolution filters on Audiolense, bass management will be covered for MCH. Variables: with Roon only, you’ll be limited to 24/192; if you want to have 8-channel native DSD128 which the Okto can do, you’ll need to run HQ Player. That may be tough without a really powerful CPU or an NVIDIA graphics card for offloading of convolution through HQP.
Did you get the Zektor because you have two subwoofers? If so, good pick. That’s what I use to switch subwoofer routing depending on my 2- vs MCH listening. You may have figured that the two subwoofer outputs on your Marantz prepro are linked like a Y connector with the same output for each, unless you run the onboard Audyssey MultiXT32 DSP, which will measure and treat each subwoofer as separate subs.
I run the Okto via Ethernet through a microRendu configured as an NAA for HQP. I get all sources upscaled to native DSD128 using HQP. However, I am working on some channel mapping problems which, if I can solve, I will happily share. USB out of my server supports 24/192 with convolution.
The Okto is the best MCH DAC I’ve heard and is really nice at its price point. JCR
Indeed. The following configuration works at home :
Was OS are you using for this server? I have an i99900 processor running my Roon Core on Linux is headless mode. Wondering about adding HQPlayer desktop and NVidia GPU to this configuration.
OS is stripped down WIndows 10 Pro.
