Soekris DAC2541 Review And Measurements

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by purr1n, Nov 11, 2020.

  1. ushanka

    ushanka Facebook Friend

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    Awesome, I am looking forward to it! Based on the impressions I figured either SW51+ will do the trick for me, or I'll be listening to the integrated headphone out and saving for DSHA3F ...
     
  2. Baten

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    In light of the Christmas spirit and thanks to the very positive impressions so far, finally caved in and decided to splurge on one. Will compare to my beloved Audial tda1541 DAC and PecanPi which is what I have on hand... Now to order some balanced Sennheiser cables to properly evaluate the internal amp! If it works well as an AIO, I could sell some things I'm hoarding like the clinical sounding topping A90. The feedback thus far seems to indicate the dac2541 is less analytical sounding than its predecessor.. music to my ears :D

    To current owners, how well does the hardware crossfeed work?
     
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2021
  3. ushanka

    ushanka Facebook Friend

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    These two "one liners" are probably the best description of what one should buy DAC2541 for. One could argue that it is analytical, but that's just not the thing that stands out. Engagement, PRAT, honesty - in that order.

    On modern records it does not seem to make much difference except for making soundstage a bit smaller for far left/right layers (this has also been my experience with Jan Meier's crossfeed implementation). Do you have a particular album/track you like to use for evaluation? I know it is supposed to be helpful for "dual mono" recordings, but I have not bumped into any in my normal listening.

    Unless you are planning to use a balanced amplifier, I wouldn't rush with the balanced cables. SE HP out works quite well (as far as integrated solutions go) IMO. I am curious how well a dedicated amp is going to do here, but given that I am listening around -40/-35 dB down with HD650, I think at least the headroom is sufficient for *most* headphones.

    Of course, if you are getting some balanced HP cables, I am quite keen to hear how much difference between there is between balanced/se =).
     
  4. edd

    edd Almost "Made"

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    for the crossfeed, try earlier Beatles stereo tracks like Twist and Shout
     
  5. Baten

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    Or something like Take Five has some pretty hard panning.
     
  6. ushanka

    ushanka Facebook Friend

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    So, the cross-feed goes in 3 levels (green -> orange -> red, in order of intensity). I'll just refer to it by color. This is all using HD650.

    Okay, so here red/max strength cross-feed felt basically mandatory. It does a lot to mellow out the extreme '2 point sources' soundstage, but overall the placement still feels awkward to me.

    On this one maybe the mastering is better? Orange and red levels both sounded good, with different advantages (orange is a bit more separated, while red was more cohesive overall). It seems the sax is not actually mixed as left-channel-only, so with cross-feed saxophone and drums went from being solidly on the left to their own spots on the stage. With crossfeed the placement starts to remind me of Branford Marsalis's Braggtown record (although instrument order is reversed).

    These were great examples, folks, I have new-found appreciation for crossfeed.
     
  7. ChaChaRealSmooth

    ChaChaRealSmooth SBAF's Mr. Bean

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    Introduction

    Anyone who has read my reviews previously knows I hate beating around the bush, so I'll say it now: Soekris DAC 2541 is a worthy alternative to the Schiit R2R sound. I think the price is right and the sonic performance, with the filter options, is quite good. Of course, there are a few things you will need to take into consideration as always, and also, I will disclose now that personally, I prefer the Schiit R2R versus the 2541 (I do want to stress that this is strictly personal preference. I think the 2541 is comparable to Gungnir MB, although this is mostly extrapolation since I never auditioned Gungnir A2 seriously at home).

    Sonics

    Before I really dig into the sonics, I want to point out that I found the 2541 to be a very good holistic listen with no show-stopping issues. Any perceived complaints in these impressions is done solely in comparison, in regards to my own personal tastes, or both (I will do my best though to be objective, but alas I'm not Skynet-operated and thus am susceptible to faults). Seriously, the 2541 is engaging and there's nothing really wrong with any aspect of its sound production.

    Anyone who wants vintage thick R2R sound, go look somewhere else. The 2541 leans even further towards what I'd dub the "modern" R2R sound; very clean, much more about straight lines. The 2541's background is noticeably blacker than any Schitt R2R DAC I've heard; if it's not on par with X-Sabre Pro, it's very close. Transients are fast and attacks are hit with authority; sense of PRaT here is top-notch, and delineation of decays is very good. In terms of blackness of background, transients, and sense of pace, the 2541 has the Yggdrasil GS beat. Like I said, a very modern sound.

    Compared directly to Yggdrasil GS, the stage on 2541 is a little bit further away (if Yggdrasil GS is row 5, 2541 is around row 10), considerably smaller in scale, and has more of that wraparound effect where the edges of the stage is closer than the middle. Center of the stage has pretty good focus, and imaging is pretty good, although the images themselves feel a little less "substantial" than the images from Yggdrasil GS (kind of like how X-Sabre Pro has paper-thin images despite really good imaging). The Yggdrasil beats the 2541 in layering and separation, but not by a French country mile; maybe just some steps ahead. Not anything that distracts from the lustening experience, just things to keep in mind in strict comparison.

    An interesting thing I've noticed with the 2541 is that unlike the Yggdrasil GS, the 2541 doesn't seem to exhibit that slight treble ringing that some R2R DACs have even if they are overall tilted dark (I also experienced this in Bifrost 2). However, that being said, I think a part of the reason why it sounds this way is that on the 2541, it sounds like the very top octave is shelved or rolled off. There seems to be a little extra air that's missing in comparison to the Yggdrasil GS. This is definitely a tradeoff; on one hand, you have less air, but the treble ringing is gone with 2541.

    The missing sense of "air" could be that the 2541 just isn't as resolving as the Schiit R2R stuff. Coming from Yggdrasil GS I immediately notice that there are some small details missing. However, as I stated in the first paragraph of the sonics section, I didn't find it bothersome and only noticed when I was focusing. It's definitely a few steps behind Yggdrasil GS, maybe a step or two back from the Gungnir A2 and Bifrost 2.

    I think the TL;DR for the 2541 in comparison to Schiit R2R is this: fewer sins of commission, but more sins of omission. A great example of this is in the bass; the 2541 sounds cleaner in the bass, but doesn't quite have the pitch differentiation and articulation the Schiit stuff has.

    Filters

    I generally preferred the linear phase filter ("brickwall" filter). This is partly because I found the synergy that worked most for me was 2541 + Starlett; Starlett helps bring some more nuance and tube goodness to the 2541's clean sound. Minimum phase probably would work better with amps like 3F (sounds a bit softer), but to be honest, I generally just preferred the linear phase filter even with EC Ultralinear. This might be because for a while I was running X-Sabre Pro in my system and don't mind that kind of sound, but that's a moot point. The point here is that the different filters are worth exploring and you should take your time with them.

    Amp Pairings (Headphones only)

    In general, I seemed to prefer amps that were more "grown-up," more laid-back with 2541. Changing the filter did help synergy with certain amps, but I didn't experience any miracles. I'll list what I used personally with the 2541 below and put some notes (good and bad)
    • Schiit Asgard 3: Not bad at all. Asgard 3 is a bit thicker, mid-centric, and nuanced. I'd start here for a synergistic cheaper amp (obviously depends on your transducer of choice).
    • OG Cavalli Liquid Carbon: I'm assuming this sounds a lot like the Drop version of it, but anyhow, the pairing works well since the Liquid Carbon has a more relaxed, laid-back tone. Sounds very much like a Cavalli.
    • DNA Starlett: Everyone on SBAF knows I love this amp to bits, but in all seriousness, this is the amp where I found the most synergy with 2541. Very nuanced, resolving, and rounded presentation works very well with 2541.
    • EC Ultralinear: A bit much. Too clean, hard-hitting, and straight for my tastes; just not really that nuanced. It got fatiguing after a while.
    • SR1a + Jot R: See the EC Ultralinear. Same deal, too much of a good thing. Wraparound stage very apparent with SR1a (obviously the wraparound effect is more noticeable with a two channel rig)

    Headphone Out

    I kind of get where @penguins was coming from with the headphone out. It ain't completely terrible, but any decent cheap amp will blow it away. However, not a terrible option if you don't want to turn your amps on and then play some video games. Overall though, I'd avoid it.

    XLR/SE Outputs

    I know @soekris explained this earlier, but for some reason on the loaner unit, the XLR just sounds better to me. I'm not really sure why this is. Not by a crazy amount, but going to the SE outs directly feels like leaving stuff on the table compared to running my Jensen transformers.

    Clipping

    Yeah, I got a little bit of clipping if I set the volume to 0. However, setting output volume to -1 fixed all issues. This doesn't bother me one bit, but if you're OCD about this kind of stuff then just go buy something else.

    Conclusion

    Like I said, I like the 2541 and think it's priced right. Very good alternative to the current lineup of Schiit R2R DACs. For me personally, I'd rather have the Schiit stuff, but the 2541 still has my recommendation.
     
    Last edited: Jan 18, 2021
  8. JeremiahS

    JeremiahS Almost "Made"

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    Nice review @ChaChaRealSmooth. How is the soundstage and layering compared to Yggdrasil GS and Gungnir Multibit?

    I was quite close to purchase this DAC but decided on the Sonic Frontiers SFD-2 in the end... I had a Gungnir Multibit A1 for borrowing in my place for a long time but I have some doubts about its sound for example, the presentation is too forward and warm despite great resolution. Thankfully the SFD-2 seems to fix my issues about the Gungnir but sometimes I wonder what I could be missing from the DAC2541.
     
  9. ushanka

    ushanka Facebook Friend

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    Just out of curiosity, where do you see the weaknesses? Flying blind here until whenever next batch of zampotech's amps makes it to US, so I am trying to figure out what I am missing purely based on prior experience of what low end SS amps sound like.
     
  10. ChaChaRealSmooth

    ChaChaRealSmooth SBAF's Mr. Bean

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    Great catch. I just updated my initial impressions. I did want to reconfirm what I heard; unfortunately work from home crimps on my listening time with my two channel rig (it's been seeing very little use and my familiarity with it is not what it was).

    Basically, buy a Magni 3+. In comparison to even cheap budget amps, the headphone out is flat in stage and somewhat flat-sounding. That being said, I didn't find it unlistenable, but I honestly don't see why you'd use it unless all you own are tube amps and that day you just didn't want to burn your tubes.

    Brings a good reminder, will edit my post based on amp pairings I found worked well.
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2020
  11. ushanka

    ushanka Facebook Friend

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    Thanks for the detail. Magni 3+ is tempting due to its price. The point about not putting time on tubes is interesting, as this is going to be a common use case for me, so perhaps I need to look into a bigger SS amp anyway.
     
  12. atomicbob

    atomicbob dScope Yoda

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    Here is a preview of my measurement suite addressing both imaging and multitone. These are AES input and Balanced output with dac2541 attenuator adjusted for -1 dB.
    20210103 dac2541 imaging FFT AES Bal - 4 filters.png

    20210103 dac2541 multitone AES Bal.png

    My initial thoughts about dac2541 after several days warmup is that this is one damn fine dac and yet it only is €1100. That is quite an achievement. The remainder of the measurement suite won't be posted for awhile. dac2541, DSHA-3F and Focal Stellia is rather addictive listening.
     
  13. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Why measure when one can enjoy?
     
  14. Clemmaster

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    So the Amirites can enjoy the sound too!
     
  15. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Amirites do not have souls.

    In my limited listening tests I cannot detect any "multibit magic." ​
     
  16. insidious meme

    insidious meme Ambivalent Kumquat

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    Can't enjoy sound when they are listening for measurements.
     
  17. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Audiophile: Listen for the Gear not the music. I didn't accept this fact until I started to browse here.

    I did something sinful today: Adjust my computer setup to go up to 24/96 via Toslink due to I don't get any audio dropouts for some reason on Toslink than using Coax for some reason. Anything more than 24/96 and it gets downsampled. The horror...but at the same time I barely noticed a difference beyond 16/44 anymore. I guess buy more gear.....but RAM sounds good already.....
     
  18. atomicbob

    atomicbob dScope Yoda

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    And there you have the sum total of the problem with certain measurement "gurus".

    It is a fool that listens only to measurements. Can't be bothered to spend hours, let alone weeks evaluating audio components for the long haul.

    It doesn't take me long to figure out if a component or system annoys me. When better overlap with my personal preferences occurs much more time is necessary to place in my personal perspective.
     
  19. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    None of these guys want to subject gear to the "Can you live with it?" test. Gear is like human relationships in that way.
     
  20. Jonah

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    Have had the dac2541 for a little while, so I'll share some casual impressions of them. My experience with DACs is limited, I'm mostly drawing my conclusions relative to RME ADI-2 (4490), which I've lived with for 2 years or so. And a Prism Sound Callia, which I acquired recently and have been enjoying a lot.

    Most of my listening has been done with the black filter, through Pi2AES -> (AES) dac2541 -> Neumann KH120 + KH750. Some listening also done on Pi2AES -> (AES) dac2541 -> SW51+ -> Auteur. This chain synergizes well.

    Bass: Rounder (not overly so), softer attack, but texturally rich, pitch differentiation is good. Weighty-ish.

    Mids: Compared to the d/s dacs i own, richer, denser, fuller, more upfront. It's a nice goldilocks situation where it isn't too decadent and rich, still retains nuance, not overly liquid nor dry.

    Treble: Laid back and/or rolled off slightly. Distinct lack of air compared to my other dacs. Still sufficiently detailed and textured, but darker than I like.

    Stage: Coherent but not especially large. depth is acceptable. I think the lack of air might smother the stage a bit.

    Imaging/layering: Okay, but not the dacs strong suit. can get a bit congested in busy tracks. The larger note size from this dac makes the imaging feel less 'precise'.

    Clarity: The lack of air works against the clarity, though I wouldn't say that the clarity is bad per se. The relatively softer leading edges also impact the clarity, though this is very minor.

    Transients: the leading edges themselves aren't aggressive/hard relative to my other dacs, but the decay is rather quick, leading to the impression of fast transients. Not hard hitting.

    Macrodynamics: Dunno. Average? I'm not good at evaluating macrodynamics as it is not a sound aspect I care about a lot.

    Microdynamics: Excellent, this dacs specialty along with timbre and r2r fullness (without overdoing it).

    Detail retrieval: Good, but not a stand-out feature or anything. The dac doesn't draw attention to the details, but it's there if you listen.

    Timbre: R2R. 'Organic'. Great with 'real' music, less good with synthetic instruments. I'm not convinced R2R timbre is inherently better.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2021

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