Oppo HA-1

What's the general consensus on the HA-1? I decided to not go Schiit TOTL as it was a bit more than I was comfortable spending. However, I can get the HA-1 for a decent price here, and it seems ideal for my uses. What do you guys think about it?

 

"Cold, sterile, dry, lean" Apparently what you'd expect from a Sabre D-S DAC. The feature set is really appealing though, it was definitely a consideration when I was looking for an 'all-in-one' system.

To clarify I haven't heard it myself, hence the quotation marks on the descriptions of the sound.

 

And look at these big Su'scon caps it uses ... they really didn't want to spend a few more dollars on some decent capacitors

 

Why not go for a Schiit stack?

And Audio-GD has some combo amps. However, if you really want a combo, go with Fulla. It even has a real pentometer. And it's made of metal.

 

I much preferred AGD's Sabre implementation to the HA-1. Much less sterile and more pleasant sounding

 

So anyone have an alternative recommendation for an all in one for about the same price? Emotiva DC-1 is Cheaper buy apparently the amp is not great. What about Fostex amps or Burson? I would do Schiit but I just cancelled an order for a Gungnir Multibit / MJ2 and wasn't a huge fan of the Bifrost Multibit.

 

I enjoy the NFB28 a lot (it's my main amp). I bought mine second hand, however, so I don't know how much shipping / taxes would be to you.

 

How about the Marantz HD-DAC1 ?

 

Just my 2 cents, I didn't like the HA-1 either. Bifrost Uber + Ember was better to my ears.

 

I have an HA-1 and Alpha Dog running balanced. Full disclosure, I'm a relative Noob to head-fi.

What I can say with absolute certainty is that from the exterior at least, the HA-1 is a very well built and a flat out sexy piece of equipment. The feature set also really is something as well. I had a $2000 budget in mind and based on reviews I figured a "jack of all trades" DAC/AMP with very favorable reviews combined with a mid-fi planar would work well. I wanted a high quality rig on mid-fi budget.

I really love the way the HA-1 sounds with (what I believe is) well recorded music. I must have listened to Violator 5 times the first evening, Roxy music sounds great as well. Poorly mixed stuff is very fatiguing however, any 2000's RHCP is harsh to my ears. Though I suppose even a more forgiving/smooth DAC can only do so much.

My guess is that the HA-1 could be among the best options in its price range provided your cans are on the darker side of neutral.

Not to derail this thread, but I'd be interested in knowing which totl (or close) open headphones posters feel mesh well with the HA-1.

 

Hate the HA-1's DAC, love its build quality, aesthetics, and feature set. I've played around with buying one used every now and then and just doing this:

1. Buy a Geek Out V2
2. Buy or DIY a TRRS to dual 3 pin XLR cable (like this one)
3. Plug it all in
4. Pretend that it's still an all-in-one unit

 

Have you considered anything from the LHLabs Pulse line (at least dual mono with femto clocks and up)? Used, they are quite reasonably priced, are compact (V1 chassis anyway), and have very good sound quality. The built in amp isn't the best, but it was more than serviceable to my ears, and might do better still than a lot of other all-in-ones.

 

I cannot really recommend it since I do not own it, but I have considered the Moon Simaudio 230 HAD as an all-in-one solution. Below is my post from the 230 HAD thread. Not as full-featured as the Oppo unit though.

 

As someone who hasn't demoed a lot of dacs its uncomfortable to hear that the dac in a sub $300 DAC/AMP would represent an upgrade to the HA-1. Curious as to what you hate about the HA-1 specifically. For me, I dislike the brightness I sense on a fair number of my 90's/00's redbook flac rips but I'm wary of spending too much time/money if "better" equipment won't result in an improvement.

 

Just because it's inexpensive, doesn't mean that it won't be better. Some of the money spent on the HA-1 is for the build quality and features.

 

More or less what Gunner said. The Geek Out V2/V2+ (in regular and infinity) punch well above their price point as DACs. They're suspiciously close to the Pulse Infinity in sound quality.

You hit the biggest problem with the HA-1's DAC right on the nose: The DAC in the HA-1 suffers from severe Sabre treble harshness and digititus. It's harsher than the Sabre implementation in the older Geek Out 450 (which IIRC use the same Sabre chip but has one filter that's slightly warmer than the other, FRM if I recall that right too) but it's not quite as harsh as a Mytek (which to me was pretty well unlistenable).

I think most of the money in the HA-1 went into the build quality, features, and looks. And it has all of those in spades. I'd love to demo the amp section with another DAC and see how it does.

 

Thanks for the clear explanation.

One critique I've read about the Alpha Dogs is that they can be a bit bright, I prefer them with one of the felt "doggie treat" discs and they more or less tame some of the issues I've heard. But I feel they lose something with the discs in place too... frankly the whole idea of adding a felt disc to an already heavily modified headphone to tame an issue is a bit disconcerting to me.

Given the point above, and what I've invested so far, a new headphone represents a much more appealing purchase to me than a DAC and/or AMP... just wanted to point that out as I'm not doubting the opinions of others here, I'm just trying to figure out what exactly in my chain is causing me to dislike some of my music. Based on a lot of what I have read I figured that Tyl's preferred signature is relatively in line with mine and I came to find out after the fact that the Alpha Dog did not merit a review from him BUT the HA-1 was favorably reviewed so I'm kind of stumped.

 

The HA-1 was reviewed by Skylab, not Tyll.

 

Yep, and I think Skylab only mentioned testing it with an Audeze LCD-3 in the review.