Digital Drive: REVIEW: Gigalab Moon DAC MKII DAC Processors by Adriel

Model:	Moon DAC MKII
Category:	DAC Processors
Suggested Retail Price:	$200
Description:	8x paralleled tda1543 with reclocking and usb support
Manufacturer URL:	Not Available

Review by Adriel on July 11, 2009 at 19:43:00
IP Address: 75.60.99.68 Add Your Review
for the Moon DAC MKII

Review of a non-oversampling 1543 dac with built-in reclock circuit.

Product features:

power: IEC receptacle, 15 watt consumption
filters: no digital filter, no analog filter
input: s/pdif coaxial up to 96khz, usb
dac: tda1543 x 8 paralleled
usb: c-media 108
cost: $200, free shipping from Hong Kong
system equipment: $13,000+
review tests: Month-long comparisons performed using various methods. Speakers,
headphones, and instantaneous preamp switching between up to 4 dacs at one time. Made
possible with 4-way s/pdif splitter. This isn't a "I had to unplug the old dac and plug in
the new dac every time".

Reclocking features:
I already have a reclocker, but reclocking closer to the dac is interesting in its own way.
However it is not a dedicated reclocker device, and I am not sure how good it is or
whether the spectrum is any better than my dedicated device. As far as the TCXO, they
are all over ebay and I actually installed one in my dedicated reclocker over the normal
VCXO. Lots of back and forth swapping but I still have the TCXO...

Ordering note:
Originally I ordered through gigalab's website, but nothing happened for a week so I ordered on ebay instead and it shipped the next day.

The 1543 are heatsinked to the bottom of the case, underneath the pcb:

Specific negatives:
This is the noisiest dac I have. The background hiss is several magnitudes louder than the
rest. Not noticeable when the volume level is set low for loud, modern, clipped
recordings. But if the volume is turned up for movies or classical music or anything well
recorded, the hiss will probably be audible at listening position on most setups.

In my setup it is not a dealbreaker. Depending on the volume knob, the background hiss
can be as quiet as a 5U4 rectifier humming away in the background, to as loud as the
tape hiss on a cassette.

In addition, with ac off and room temp of 78 - 80 degrees, the unit heats up very warm to
the touch. Like a laptop power supply.

Resolving detail:
In terms of resolution the 8x version doesn't bottom out quite like the single 1543 can on
some types of frequencies or complex music. However 8x is still not up to an
oversampling dac's resolution. This is not surprising, since there's only perhaps 1.5 extra
bit performance gained from 8x.

How does this 8x sound:
There is more midrange emphasis. To some people, this would be an ideal 1543 sound. It
can be more pleasing at times and I often switch between 8x and a single 1543 dac
depending on mood.

However, I believe it places more distance between myself and the music. At times it
really just sounds like the sonic signature imprinted 8 times over. Like an artist sketch by
hand performed on 8 different glass panels, and they are all stacked on top of each other.
The basic shape of agreement becomes very prominent, and the finer outside details are
blurred since there is less agreement at the extremes.

While paralleled dac supposedly averages the errors, my ear tells me that other things are
averaged as well. For instance, the timing is averaged. Whereas a single 1543 has an
impeccable sense of timing, the paralleled is not as precise.

USB:
If I was on a temporary assignment I would gladly pack this dac with a laptop. However,
if you are considering USB for the home, you need to ascertain the specifications and
limits of the c-media 108 first. You need to determine its bit-depth support whether 16 or
24, as well as whether or not its drivers support bit-perfect. Many c-media drivers do not
allow bypassing of the 3d stereo processing, so you need to proceed with caution. Then,
you will need to determine a bit-perfect type of output you can get it to work on. Such as
kernel streaming or wasapi.

Tweak potential:
Perhaps, these capacitors close to the analog output. They are Philips KO 22uf/100V as
seen below:

Full image:
You may click on the link to download a high resolution photo of the entire PCB.
Download the zip file

There are two upgrades to the review process.

Technical upgrades: Sine-wave AC regenerator for clean power to preamp and reclocker
and dac. And by request, someone told me to buy real audio racks for review purposes.
So I did, but the resulting picture is problematic and I will have to be more careful with
people's inane requests in the future:

Graphics upgrade:
The second upgrade is the quick-look graphics that simplify the comparison process:

In fact, there is a page where you can see all DAC graphics:
DAC Quick Comparison

Conclusion:
A friendlier sounding 1543 at the expense of timing. A committee of voices that develop
a mainstream chorus, versus the coherency and delicacy of a single voice albeit more
limited.

Product Weakness:	noise
Product Strengths:	price

Associated Equipment for this Review:

Amplifier: 300B SET monoblocks by Sophia Electric
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): Primaluna Prologue Three
Sources (CDP/Turntable): lots
Speakers: Omega Super 8 XRS
Cables/Interconnects: audioquest
Music Used (Genre/Selections): lots
Time Period/Length of Audition: 30 days
Type of Audition/Review: Product Owner

Amplifier:	300B SET monoblocks by Sophia Electric
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	Primaluna Prologue Three
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	lots
Speakers:	Omega Super 8 XRS
Cables/Interconnects:	audioquest
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	lots
Time Period/Length of Audition:	30 days
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner