Guys; I placed my order for the DAC 200 in late December and expect delivery in mid February. I have a source within Roon who has one deployed in his listening room and LOVES it and stated to me he has no such issues whatsoever. This thread has given me some cause for concern but in chatting with him he insists I will have no such issues.
I have a Signature Optical Rendu streamer and will be replacing my PS Audio DSD with the DAC 200 and am STOKED. It will be my primary source, delivering the final (music) product to my Krell preamp and then off to my 2.0 stereo Krell amp.
Secondarily I have a Roon Ready Lyngdorf MP-60 on the network and DO occasionally use the MP-60 when friends are over who want to experience multichannel “immersive” sound as the M-60 is connected to 3 amplifiers supporting a Dolby Atmos system of 5.2.4.
In reviewing the DAC 200 manual I saw three ports that looked like ethernet ports yet nowhere in the manual does it call out "ethernet."THAT was confusing. My friend states I should ignore this altogether. Not really an issue says.
I have a Small Green Computer which hosts the Roon Core and he states that is all I need - that I shouldn’t even NEED to connect the DAC 200 via ethernet as the MP-60 is Roon Ready.
As for the discussion relating to all of the issues I see on this thread, he’s at a loss to explain as he has seen none of this with his DAC 200. So fingers crossed I will have a seamless migration going from my 8 year old PS Audio DSD to this acclaimed DAC 200. Nice to see so many members here speak so highly of this DAC. Until recently I’d never HEARD of T+A but have since come to learn the company is known as the Porsche of Audio in Europe!
Cheers!
Congrats on your purchase!
They’re both great DACs, although very different in signature i would say.
You should have no trouble migrating from one to the other.
As for problems, the one i described it really seems to be about Roon handling the DAC with specific upsampling settings, and not the DAC itself, so no worries there it will be fixed.
Thanks, man. Appreciate you allaying my concerns. Still struggling between the NEW DSD MKII and the T+A DAC 200. The new, updated DSD from PS Audio is said to be amazing. I was driving an MB the past 8 years and thought I’d try a BMW for a change, my metaphor to mirror your sentiments.
Hey, Quark; I see you dig the DAC 200 and seems most do. A LOT. I have one coming and bought on blind faith. What did you have PREVIOUSLY for context. You say it sounds incredible, but incredible compared to what? Thanks!
A friend of mine has the PSAudio and tried DAC200 at home. He liked it but said PS was more to his taste. (Maybe a bit smoother to balance his Martin Logan panels)
I never compared them back to back though.
But, to his ears (and mine) the best DAC he has ever heard on his system was the SDV3100HV by a good margin.
The reason i traded the DAC8 DSD for the DAC200 is not only it was clearly better, but it also reminded me a lot of the SDV signature i remember from listening it at his home.
In terms of design…. DAC200 beats PS Audio all day.
That’s great to know, and thanks. Funny how everyone can have a different take on the same machine. It can only be a function of personal taste, and, as you suggest, equipment. What would be a better A/B comparison I think would be the new DSD MKII and the DAC 200. The Beta testers for the new PS Audio DAC rave about it. All that said no doubt both units top shelf, and certainly glad you like the DAC 200. I’m a fan of clarity, mot colored music. And at these price points we expect a DAC to emote, to be, in short, “musical.” We want to be engaged and blown away. At least I do.
If this is the case, you want to stay away from PSAudio. Their philosophy is quite far away from uncolored and clean. The original DirectStream dac is one of the worst measuring dacs out there. I’ve heard it and liked the sound back in 2019 but it’s the usual smooth/fluffy/warm/comfortable sound signature which makes everything a super easy listen. I kind of understand its popularity.
You made the right choice with T+A. You also get two dacs for the price of one since T+A has separate dacs for PCM and DSD. You can max out the potential by using HQPlayer.
Very encouraging to know, and thanks. Yes, very easy to listen to. While some complain the T+A is “too clinical” or “lacking emotion,” I should think the goal of a great DAC is PRECISION AND CLARITY. After all, Beethoven and Lennon & McCartney would not have us color their music. Great recordings made with great production efforts capture the emotion of a performance , IF the performers are emoting. Duh! I’m very much looking to my T+A!
I received an email notification of your message Friday, but got caught up in other stuff and completely forgot to reply.
So I had a Mytek Brooklyn DAC (original version) previously, which was very nice. The Brooklyn connected to an opticalrendu and benchmark AHB2 power amplifier. I had a nice MCRU LPSU for the Brooklyn. But the Brooklyn never seemed enough for the benchmark power amplifier, which is why I looked for something better.
Anyway the DAC 200 is significantly better than the Brooklyn with my Benchmark AHB2 power amplifier, night and day significant, and continues to improve the more I’ve used it. The DAC 200 is a completely different level, as I suppose you’d expect for the price differences.
Hope that helps mate, sorry for the late response.
No worries on the reply, mate; all good. I’m not at all surprised you’ve found audio nirvana relative to the DAC you’ve replaced. And cool you’ve got optical Rendu in your array as do I. There is almost always a direct relationship between cost of goods and performance. So naturally no surprise you’ve found a significant improvement in a DAC 200 relative to your Brooklyn DAC that costs about 1/3 of the selling price of the DAC 200.
My unit is due to arrive in about 2 weeks a bit ahead of schedule so need to get with my AV installer to move up the date if possible. I’m a Control4 customer and at the mercy of C4.
Even though the initial is “Roon Tested” but not Roon Ready” I presume it plays well with Roon? In any case, thanks for getting back to me.
Please note:
The “Roon Ready” label is for (ethernet) network players,
“Roon Tested” is for DACs (with USB input).
So “Roon Tested” is the correct label for this DAC. Further information about Roon Tested & Roon Ready devices can be found here: https://roonlabs.com/partners
The T+A MP200 streamer (matching companion device to the DAC200) is of course “Roon Ready”.
Right! Subsequently figured that out - that the labeling is the distinction between streaming via Ethernet….or not! But I’ll be fine as I have a Sonore Optical Rendu streamer which of course is Roon Ready.
I can relate to this. I too came from Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ > DAC8DSD > DAC200. Great jump to DAC8DSD (more fluidity and detail, less harshness) even bigger to DAC200 (more bass, dynamics, detail, imaging). So i can only imagine your reaction when going from the Mytek to the DAC200.
True! As i side note, i also found DAC200 to have improved greatly on the PCM compared to DAC8DSD (wich was special mainly due to its DSD abilities coupled with good upsampling algorithms). I think this newer DAC has less of a gap between the PCM and DSD specially if you don‘t own a powerfull streamer to used filters like ASDM7EC 256 and up to take full advantage of the DSD side of it.
I actually don’t see clinical at all on any of T+A components i see transparency, precision, fluidity, great attack and dynamics! (And i have full T+A on eletronics)
BTW you can see a review here from TAS about the Series 200 on page 87 and check out what they say comparing to CH Precision.
What you can expect is that they don’t round the music for you, neither make it more pleasing if the recording is not that good. But then again this depends on many other factors like speakers, the pre//power and the source quality,
Hi @Larry_HV
As friendly reminder, any chance the T+A guys helping out Roon ironing out this bug?
Btw, for other out there that may be experiencing the same, I found out that if PCM is used (even with upsampling) it all works fine, and control of DAC is always mantained afterw power off/on.
Thanks Jonnie; this was an interesting albeit challenging review to read only insofar as the layout of this link is concerned. Seems like reviewer is quite keen on the “stack.” But can you please confirm the he is comparing the T+A DAC directly with the CH Precision DAC I have linked in here - the C.1.2 DAC? If so, it speaks VOLUMES about the T+A DAC 200 since the price of this CH DAC appears to be $36,000! DO I have this right? It’s the only DAC I could find in their line up. Future TAS: CH Precision C1.2 DAC/ Controller - The Absolute Sound and this…CH Precision C1.2 Digital to Analog Controller DAC/STREAMER/PRE – AudioVision San Francisco. So am I missing something here or us this indeed a comparison between a 7.12K DAC V a 35K DAC? Thanks a bunch, man!
The new CH C1.2 DAC was also reviewed in the new Stereophile. The review didn’t impress me. It just didn’t left a feeling of a $36k worth of DAC. Then again, I’m not sure if any DAC could actually be worth that money.
Right! After reading a second time I came to the same conclusion. It wasn’t exactly an apples to apples comparison, and yet still, in context it’s so obvious that T+A generally plays in the same league at close to half the price. That’s a fairly resounding endorsement. Looking forward to getting my unit installed on 14 Feb!
As reported we could reproduce the issue in our lab.
According to our findings we believe that it is a roon issue.
We have contacted roonlabs about this problem, but we have not received an answer, yet.
I will let you know when I have further information about this issue.
I have some static noise emanating from my speakers with the DAC200
its is connected to an Auralic Aries G1 through the USB input and output is in Line mode on the Dac into T+A M200’s as I use Roon to control digital volume on the Aries. I also get the error on max sample rate I Roon which means it doesn’t read the DAC200’s capabilities correctly.
I have tried several USB cables and the static noise and popping shows on all cables.
It is there when not playing any audio and mainly through the tweeters and not at the same time. Sometimes the right channel pops and other times the left. What is audible in both tweeters constantly is a switching sound with a click in the middle. don’t really find the right words to describe it.
If I turn off the Dac its dead quiet.
The same issue was reported a long time ago with the DAC 8 DSD and was fixed with a firmware update. (I have the DAC 8DSD too and it doesn’t show this issue in same setup so it is DAC200 related)
In AES/EBU connection it does not exhibit this anomaly.
