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Showing 1 of 155 reviews about:
Kad998
27
Mar 1, 2019
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Brosefstalin42I’m glad to have found somebody with the SU8 and the Jot. The SU8 is on the way and I will pair this as you did. I just had a quick question for running them both. This is my first time having a stand-alone Dac. Did you just connect them both through XLRs and the Dac through your computer via USB?
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Now, I'm not one to get into the super detailed sound since I don't have the money to have 20 units on hand to compare, but the D30 and the SU-8 have similar enough sound signatures through my Jotunheim to end up with a sound I enjoy. I haven't tried the SU-8 with my Magni 3 or A30 amps, but the Jotunheim gives a similar enough sound that it isn't too far off from the D30 that I believe it would work well with them as well.
One small issue I have had is with DX11 games, sometimes the drivers glitch on Win10, but either a source switch or an off-on cycle solves it. Haven't had issues with non-DX11 games, and sometimes I can go days without the issue, but it happens just randomly enough to notice it. If you're just listening to music, you won't have any issues AFAIK.
So far, for the price, this is the best price-performance XLR out DAC available, and with the greater diminishing returns on DACs than amps, this makes a great entry into balanced territory. Do I believe in the whole Sonic benefit of balanced? Eh, not really. But with XLR the overall volume becomes stronger, meaning the amp won't have to work as hard for volume with XLR-in connections. Try this out, and then see if you like it or can even tell the difference between the XLR and RCA connections sonically, and go from there to see if higher end XLR balanced DACs will be worth it, if you don't really care for the difference between the XLR and RCA connections, or if RCA gets it done for you. You'll save a little if you don't need the XLR on the higher end units until you get into the 4 figure units, which then you'll have more money to directly compare units than I will.
TL;DR - good entry unit for XLR, not cold like other SMSL units I've tried, best price-performance-feature unit available, IMO.