Dangerous Music: Convert 2

Burl B2 also has a Dante version to skip the whole usb thing when that was a thing (is it still a thing? how many times have I said thing now? I can't keep track)

 

Both the B2 and Solaris were candidates for my next DAC when researching but I'll admit that I had a bias towards the black Dangerous Convert 2.

I'll be sure to post my thoughts once I get it in. Warm up time probably 1/4 or less compared to Yggdrasil A2?

 

No warm up required, sounds great out the box.

 

That's what are little buddy on the end was implying.

 

:O
One of the 'new tech things' I see on the board of the Convert 2 worth mentioning are the 38511 LD regs, that are supposed to be ultra fast (negligible supply impedance where it counts).
Bricasti is apparently impressive because of the ocd power design and perhaps over the crop filters, but it does have 2x as many AD1955s.

 

You make a very good point. In my experience, attempting to 'hear' the BOM of a DAC is comical. Of all the examples I've tried recently, the two still in my possession fall on opposite ends of power supply nervosa. One uses three separate LPS (one for each channel and one for the input board) and the other uses the same switcher for everything. However, both use the AD1955 and custom filters. Given a competent analog section, it seems to me that it really does come down to the chip and digital filters.

Analyzing a product based on the underlying parts seems much more reasonable when the component relies heavily on mechanical attributes, such as a speaker. For example, a 7" woofer in a small ported box isn't likely to compete with a 15" woofer in a large sealed box for bass quality. And that same 15" woofer is likely to have way more issues integrating with a 1" soft dome tweeter than the 7" woofer.

 

I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about the role a DAC plays in a professional/studio setting. Digitally mastered music typically doesn't go through a DAC when it is actually output. The final output from the DAW is simply written directly to a file in its terminal encoding. A studio DAC has no direct bearing on the quality of that output at all.

The studio DAC exists so the mixing/mastering engineer can hear what they're working with as they track, mix and EQ. It's very rare, anymore, that its output is actually recorded (either digitally or in the analog domain). The only reasonably common exception that'd result in a studio DAC's output being used directly is when feeding an actual broadcast or PA system from a digital source - most of which are not a significant qualitative concern due to other factors rendering them typically less transparent/capable than even budget D/S DACs.

Features for integration/operation within a studio environment (clock sync, distribution, direct monitoring, remote/network control, level/config displays) are really the differentiating factors for such things, as well as supportability/reliability ... and those trump almost everything else.

 

Make sure your amp can handle the almost 10v output off the balanced outputs. I Emailed pass labs about the compatibility with the convert 2 and my xp-10 and this is what they had to say


" The Xp-10 is good for 5v-rms per leg on the input, to 10V balanced. I would guess that if the signal is one or two bits off max that thee would be no issue. A real hot recording would be getting close to the upper recommended limit with the XP-10. For what it's worth the Xp-12 is good for quite a bit more input signal."

Not sure what he means by "if the signal is off one or two bits max there will be no issue"

 

Off from full scale.
Can't yo adjust the gain on the Convert 2?

 

Yep. Hot for normal stuff but Most studio gear has a -14 setting so it's handy. You can use the attenutaor though I don't know the effect on sq

 

I like the look of these pro audio items and wonder if anybody has ever tested the SPL Phonitor Director DAC. It's in the price range, street price should be about what Yggdrasil costs, and the SPL 120V tech seems to be good for analog wit the the very positive reviews their amps got here recently.

 

The max output of the Convert 2 is +22dBu which amounts to 9.76 volts RMS balanced, confirming what Pass Labs said. You should be fine with XP10, unless you listen to the music cranked up to 0dBFS with zero dynamic range.

 

Did anyone compare the Convert-2 to D-Box? I found D-Box inferior to my current DAC solution.

 

I'll just leave this here...

 

Fancy DAC stand!

 

We should really merge this thread with Marvs thread.

 

Uh no. The most carefully done modern digital recordings of real music (no audiophile muzak crap) usually have multiple DAC -> analog gear -> ADC stages to get everything to sit right, have consistent analog distortion on the mix, and glue it all together. Even electronic music (especially if made using Ableton as the summing in Ableton sucks) tends to have multiple DAC -> ADC stages to use analog color boxes.

First you will have the mics -> mic pres -> adc. Then after stuff is done itb the tracks might be dac -> analog boxes -> adc. Then analog summing might happen so another dac -> analog summer -> adc stage. Finally a bus compressor might be run on the whole summed mix to glue it together which could be another dac -> adc stage. The analog summing and the master bus compressor are glue and make mixes sound better. Stuff without the latter you can often pick apart while something like 80s Slayer has that SSL bus sound gluing it all together.

Or you can have some audiophile crap all done in a shitty digidesign Pro Tools HD unit (with no external clock) with veiled mic pres on the instruments (think Grace but usually worse as Grace can be fat), clean digital compression to make the percussion not call attention to itself, and it will just sound boring and lame as there is no good content to record in the first place, just inoffensive elevator muzak for old farts to flex their shitty but expensive speaker rigs with.

Decent converters super important for this stuff if it's going to sound good.

 

What kind of pro gear requires use the full 10v output? Are monitors/pro-amps really low gain? Is it meant for a PA system?

 

Three Yggdrasil's posted for sale in three days on HF. Choo choooooo!



With one specifying the Convert 2 as a trade.