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Review and Measurements of Hifime UDA38Pro DAC
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
Aw thanks!
It is shame about these measurements. I would not have bought this dac on this review, but I did buy it earlier in the year before there were any reviews at all. To me, the dac sounds very clean, neutral and natural without the stereotypical 'sabre sound' of many implementations of the previous chips. I haven't put up a review on the hifime website, but I agree with the description of sound as described by the reviews posted on the manufacturer's website.
I can't speak to the manufacturing quality but perhaps the reviewer's unit was defective. Perhaps this dac does have some levels of pleasing distortion - I wouldn't be surprised. But to me, it is really pleasing to listen to. I would really love to hear other implementations of this chip, because if this is a bad one, I am really looking forward to hearing one that doesn't have the budget constraints of this entry level dac.
I would have liked to see some sort of USB isolation built in and a remote control. The rca placement seems odd in that it is at the front where the volume control is. The volume control is pretty sensitive as described. Also, the photos posted of the internals of the dac as well as those posted at the company's website are not consistent with what is actually inside.
I can't speak to the manufacturing quality but perhaps the reviewer's unit was defective. Perhaps this dac does have some levels of pleasing distortion - I wouldn't be surprised. But to me, it is really pleasing to listen to. I would really love to hear other implementations of this chip, because if this is a bad one, I am really looking forward to hearing one that doesn't have the budget constraints of this entry level dac.
I would have liked to see some sort of USB isolation built in and a remote control. The rca placement seems odd in that it is at the front where the volume control is. The volume control is pretty sensitive as described. Also, the photos posted of the internals of the dac as well as those posted at the company's website are not consistent with what is actually inside.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #124
See this review of SMSL D1 for a much better implementation: https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...iew-and-measurements-of-smsl-vnv-d1-dac.4375/
olavrb
Member
Just wanted to say thank you so much for this review. I've owned one for soon one year (august 2019), and have been struggling with hissing. I've tried ground loop isolators, attenuator (iFi iEMatch), different high quality power supplies, but nothing fixed it. I thought my headphone amp (iFi iCan SE) was to blame, but after reading this scientific approach there can be no other explaination than the UDA38Pro being a bad implementation of such a highend chip. Even my cheap-ish HRT MusicStreamer II produces way better output (no audible hissing) than the UDA38Pro. Probably way to long since I bought this thing to get any money back, argh.
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