ESS 9023 Sabre vs ESS 9016 Sabre DAC Query

[WryZed]

Hi All,

Looking for a bit of advice from those in the know.

So, long story short: Last week I bought myself a Audioquest DragonFly Red, Audioquest Jitterbug and a pair of Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro 250 Ohms. They arrived on the weekend.

I then proceeded to short my PC's CPU / Mobo in an unrelated activity so had to order in replacements (I'm glossing over the sheer amount of pain that statement right there entailed), by which I elected for an Asus Z170 ROG Maximus III Formula, which I installed yesterday.

The issue is that the Audioquest Dragonfly Red is built around an ESS 9016 DAC, but the new motherboard has a built in ESS 9023 DAC. I haven't had either DAC or these headphones long enough (or burnt in) at the moment to 'really' be able to identify which one is better in the long run, but basically I'm trying to decide if I should return the Dragonfly Red & Jitterbug in favour of the built in (shielded) ESS 9023, and thus reclaim £200 of my somewhat impromptu spending over the weekend, or whether the ESS 9016 is significantly better than the 9023 that it's worth keeping.

Looking forward to getting some opinions from you fine people!

I should probably add, my intent is for general listening (note, streamed, not audiophile), gaming (primarily, and looking to achieve something as engrossing as possible) etc. I also have a Focusrite 2i2 & Sennheiser HD25-ii's which I've used for a time, but find the bass muddies out and gets somewhat flabby on the low end, further the Senny's have (obviously) quite a narrow soundstage. Closed back is required due to environment, unfortunately.

Kind regards,
WryZed

 

[shadyJ]

Return all the Audioquest junk, it is a scam. There is no way for you to really identify which is better without a blind comparison, and that is not likely to happen, and if these circuits are competently engineered at all, there shouldn't be any humanly discernable difference anyway. I would trust ASUS's engineering long before I would trust Audioquest's. If you are concerned about EM noise from the MB, hook the headphones up to the jack on the MB; if you hear nothing, it is fine. Any EM noise will be evident. Beyond that, any audio difference will be due to the headphones themselves.

 

[WryZed]

Wow! That's... um... scathing? I wasn't expecting that as I'd only heard good things about the Dragonfly...

 

[j_garcia]

He is correct. AQ is a scam. The reason you can't "identify" them is because there won't be a meaningful difference and that won't change over time.

 

[shadyJ]

The truth is modern DACs are going to be very difficult to distinguish. For non-critical listening, like what you are doing, there should be zero difference. The only way that there might be a difference is if Audioquest somehow 'voiced' their DAC, which is something I would not put past them. Here is an article about DACs. I wouldn't think about getting an external DAC unless you find your MB has a high noise floor first.

 

[WryZed]

Appreciate the responses; Think I'll go ahead and reclaim my £200 then. Fact is they "both" sounded better than my previous solutions, but they each sound "different". One thing I do have a sneaking suspicion of with the Dragonfly Red (without empirical testing) is what I think might have pretty high latency; there have been a couple of times where it seemed the audio dropped out, but it was too brief and inconsistent to nail the cause.

Thanks again!

 

[WryZed]

ShadyJ; No I appreciate the idea; the problem I was experiencing, and the reason I bought into the Dragonfly Red was that my old board, an Asus Z170 Deluxe, was using a Realtek ALC1150. Which was just kinda nasty. Bass just became a puddle at the low end and dropped out. My Focusrite 2i2 I bought years ago wasn't much better with the task; couldn't keep the frequencies distinguished enough.

Eventually I got to a point where I wanted to improve on it a notch so took the dive on the Red after the apparently sterling reviews. Promptly shorted my board within quite literally 30mins of delivery of the Red (unrelated) and hence had to replace the whole damn thing so decided, by getting something a touch more recent and on par with the deluxe but more focused to my requirements, to try out the Asus Maximus III Formula which comes with the ESS 9023 by default. So you see they came about pretty much the exact same time.

But yeah, think I'm going to return the Red and put the money elsewhere!

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I'd say this: If you connect your new (very nice ones btw) to computer and a) you get sufficient volume and b) no noticeable noise (hiss, clicks etc...) - return the dac.
Audioquest is by large snake oil cable pusher, and I'd take anything made by them with few tons of salt.
I bought (imo overpriced) AudioEngine D1 dac and headphone amp for about $150.
The main reason is NOT dac performance, but in my case I needed isolation from pc, which both internal pci soundcard and internal codec were way too noisy. Having a bit more powerful headphone amp is also useful to me.

If you have issue with a or b - try this product instead:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=11567

 

[WryZed]

Cheers BoardSysAdmin; I ended up choosing the DT770 250's because I unfortunately do need the closed back design, both to keep sound in but also out; from what I could tell these were pretty much the best / only solution in this price bracket to also offer what I was looking for. Looked at the ATH-M50x but I finally chose these as, from what I could tell and without personally testing the either, they seemed a touch more balanced (@ 250Ohm specifically) over ATH-M50x, clean yet heavy bass, and more comfortable overall. I also wanted the largest soundstage I could get on a closed back (and yes, I do commit the cardinal sin of running my audio through virtual surround sound such as Razers implementation when gaming. I know. Thousands of audiophiles just died reading that line. Soz.), and again at my price range I think I chose right. In the limited time I've spent with them so far, I truly am impressed!

It's funny because I used to have a pair of Senny 595's and listened to a pair of DT880's at the time, found them to be too harsh on the highs and completely lacking in the mids, but years later having been through other headsets and my 595's having long since been put to rest, I actually prefer the Beyer sound profile now. Maybe with a touch of EQ to roll off the absolute top.

Played around with the onboard briefly last night and I have to say, it does drive it nicely even at low volume, so yeah, returning the Dragonfly kit today methinks!

 

[tyhjaarpa]

If you want better sound with headphones all you will ever need is O2DAC (dac + amp combo), getting anything more expensive will be wasted. There are 2 different verisons on this unit:

http://www.headnhifi.com/OBJ_O2_ODAC_digital2
http://www.headnhifi.com/o2-odac-combo

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

If you want better sound with headphones all you will ever need is O2DAC (dac + amp combo), getting anything more expensive will be wasted. There are 2 different verisons on this unit:

http://www.headnhifi.com/OBJ_O2_ODAC_digital2
http://www.headnhifi.com/o2-odac-combo

Since OP used UK pounds as currency, methinks that local UK product (with same basic design as JDS Odac) is in order :
http://epiphany-acoustics.co.uk/products-page/dacs/ehp-o2di-desktop-headphone-amplifierdac-3/

Speaking of NwAvGuy - the man and the mystery. Any idea what became of him?
http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/nwavguy-the-audio-genius-who-vanished

 

[tyhjaarpa]

Since OP used UK pounds as currency, methinks that local UK product (with same basic design as JDS Odac) is in order :
http://epiphany-acoustics.co.uk/products-page/dacs/ehp-o2di-desktop-headphone-amplifierdac-3/

Speaking of NwAvGuy - the man and the mystery. Any idea what became of him?
http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/nwavguy-the-audio-genius-who-vanished

HeadNHifi is in center Europe, so not so far from UK.

I have only heard of rumors about NwAvGuy, I don't think there is real information around what really happened to him.

 

[WryZed]

Thanks all! I went ahead and returned it all, will run with the onboard DAC for now but if that truly ends up being a bit naff then I will certainly look at the O2/ODAC combo as suggested, having now insta-experted myself on the history, courtesy of Google