The T+A DAC200 is a high end digital to analog converter with one DAC for PCM and another for DSD, with one a fair bit better than the other…..
The video above is my subjective review of the DAC200, if you’d like to see full measurements they are posted here: https://goldensound.audio/2023/11/22/ta-dac200-measurements/
Product Page: https://www.ta-hifi.de/en/audiosystems/series-200/dac-200-d-a-converter/
great review, very informative, i did own the May KTE and did A/B test with Dac 200 for 1 week and i kept the Dac 200 and sold the May KTE since it sounded better in MY system.
I currently stream qobuz threw my Lumin U1 mini using lumin app and connect USB to T+A dac 200. I would love to try HQPlayer DSD playback like you propose. Can’t find an easy solution anywhere. May i ask how you performed this and what you suggest.
I prefer not connecting my laptop directly to the dac but from what i understand, lumin streamer’s don’t have NAA built in! Meaning i can’t use my lumin app to stream once hqplayer upsampled?
Great review. I have learned more about the Dac200. I own the dac200 ans Holo May L2. Definitely prefer Dac200, more musical and versatile. Also with HQP/DSD, it leaves the competition behind.
I extensively auditioned the DAC 200 in my system against an Auralic Vega G2.1 (fed by an Auralic Aries G2 and Sirius Processor G2.x). I let it break in for >100 hours. My plan was to sell the Vega and Sirius if the DAC 200 was at least equal, but hopefully better. But that posed a challenge I hadn’t initially foreseen. The DAC 200 fed by the Aries streamer wasn’t as good as the Vega fed by the Aries and upsampled to DSD via the Sirius. So, I was going to return the T+A unit. Then, I thought I should try it again w/ the Sirius upsampling to DSD into the DAC 200.
Long story short: I’ve kept the DAC 200 and sold the Vega (a quite good DAC at roughly the same price as the DAC 200.) But I had to keep the Sirius processor which is doing essentially the same thing as HQ Player more conveniently. So, I think I have the best of both worlds – convenience and performance though the cost is significant for that convenience.
FWIW – I use Auralic Lightning DS instead of Roon as it sounds much better in direct comparison. And, this streamer sounded much better than the streamers it replaced or the optimized Mac mini I started with. So, I’m not really willing to go back to a computer to run HQ Player. My experience only. As with all things in this expensive hobby. YMMV.