VMV D2R Stereo DAC Review

[beeface]

I guess we're lucky in ASR land where a $1,000 DAC can be overpriced

Out there in the big bad world, people are spending a lot more on Chord, dCS, Totaldac, etc.

 

[gvl]

The price of the Rohm chip itself..

View attachment 331580
[pdf claims]: "The BD34301EKV delivers superior performance in audio equipment by improving sound quality in ways that cannot be defined by numerical characteristics "

Spensive. Ok, so they didn’t save a couple of bucks, my question still stands.

 

[IAtaman]

Thank you for the review Amir. The streak continues

Glad to see a well performing and relatively cheap R2R DAC from a Chinese manufacturer. Curious to see what excuse "Hi-End" DAC manufactures like Chord that offers zero additional functionality and performance advantage will hide behind this time. My bet is on the filter.

 

[gvl]

Thank you for the review Amir. The streak continues

Glad to see a well performing and relatively cheap R2R DAC from a Chinese manufacturer. Curious to see what excuse "Hi-End" DAC manufactures like Chord that offers zero additional functionality and performance advantage will hide behind this time. My bet is on the filter.

It’s D2R, not to be confused with R2R.

 

[IAtaman]

It’s D2R, not to be confused with R2R.

Oh! My bad. I read R2R.

 

[gvl]

Oh! My bad. I read R2R.

I wonder if this was intentional naming to lure R2R seekers.

 

[amirm]

Oh! My bad. I read R2R.

I originally thought it was R2R as well until I looked up the specs on the website.

 

[dogmamann]

I don't get it. $1,000 for a DAC that is certainly not 'state of the art', not that such even matters for a DAC.

150-200 dollars is what anyone needs for transparency. Anything above is for features. But sometimes I wonder, wait are the features alone worth that much, since the heart of the dac unit itself is the dac chip+its D/A conversion electronics. If that’s achievable at 200, then the700, 800 dollars what some topping dacs cost is pure ripoff. The e30 sounds exactly like a d90. Is the extra features worth that much ? I don’t think so!!

 

[solderdude]

hmmm that default 'slow' filter might be audible different from the fast filter which adheres better (but far from perfect) to the sampling theorem.
Typical 'filterless' roll-off in default, this means we will see the typical stair-step shapes in the analog signal. It is simulated though but steps are there.
Would have been fun to see the difference of say a 6kHz sine wave between the 2 filter settings.

What I find most amusing about this is that the 'analog sound' lovers always say digital sounds bad because of the 'stair steps' yet they claim that filterless sounds 'more analog' yet they are in fact listening to the stair steps...

 

[phoenixdogfan]

One question I ask myself in buying audio gear is whether an Ebay buyer will want to even pay 50 percent of the list price of the gear five years later provided it's still in good working condition. Can anyone envision someone wanting to pay $500 for this particular DAC?

 

[Klonatans]

At this price RME ADI-2 DAC FS is a much more tempting option.

 

[gvl]

One question I ask myself in buying audio gear is whether an Ebay buyer will want to even pay 50 percent of the list price of the gear five years later provided it's still in good working condition. Can anyone envision someone wanting to pay $500 for this particular DAC?

Higher end Topping DACs seem to hold their values well enough, blame this forum for it.

 

[IAtaman]

What I find most amusing about this is that the 'analog sound' lovers always say digital sounds bad because of the 'stair steps' yet they claim that filterless sounds 'more analog' yet they are in fact listening to the stair steps...

What do you mean? Filterless does not mean there are stair steps. Or do you mean R2R? Maybe you do - I am very confused this morning

If it is not R2R, I don't understand what is the point of this device. How is it different than all of the other 36 DACs SMSL has in their portfolio these days? Did they fire the Product Manager and hired another design engineer again?

 

[gvl]

Filterless means steps. NOS not necessarily so.

 

[thewas]

For $1000 the enclosure could at least be standard 430 mm and not have different font styles on the display. Really don't understand its value as I don't even find it really beautiful.

 

[voodooless]

Filterless means steps. NOS not necessarily so.

Only when you perform sample and hold, which by definition is already a filter of sorts. A delta-sigma DAC like this cannot even run filterless. At best you could emulate sample and hold.

My guess is this DAC will not show stair steps, but rather does something that resembles linear interpolation for the slow filter.

For an expensive flagship DAC chip performance isn’t very great. A much cheaper AKM or ESS chip would match or best this performance for way less money.

 

[testp]

i like the mini-cd slot or atleast what looks like a mini-cd slot, that gold thing could be in 500€ Special Edition dac's as well (then again, ahh never mind, with time this look gets old i guess)

 

[daniboun]

Really beautiful DAC.


Thanks Amir!

Hummm really looks like the Sabaj A30A

 

[VintageFlanker]

Thank you @amirm !

Marketing-wise, I don't understand the very existence of this one. It's some "High End" VMV, yes, but doesn't come with R2R buzzwords. The choice of a Rohm DS chip... meh. It doesn't mean anything to the audiophile audience it targets, and at the end of the day, is not even able to perform any better (while very good) than other AKM/ESS/Cirrus implementations from the same brand... Question is : who would buy this ?

I would never spend $1,000 for a DAC.

Oh, I would. Just not for an S.M.S.L DAC.

 

[daniboun]

Expensive for its measured performance when compared to other offers. However it does have a AES/EBU digital input. There might be an advantage using the AES/EBU in terms of noise, spurious & jitter and FFT. The least expensive DAC with AES/EBU I found was the Gustard X16.

Right....

The SMSL D300 uses the same chip offers same performances for $389.
Why would you spend $ 999 )

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