Dangerous Music Source

Discussion in 'Headphone Amplifiers and Combo (DAC/Amp) Units' started by Psalmanazar, Oct 15, 2018.

  1. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    This thing is so cool; it hits like a beast when called for. Great DAC and active-preamp parts. Headamp hits hard as hell for solid state with no bass bleeding into the mids. I've been very impressed with this for most of 2018. It's a massive upgrade from Schiit products (Here's not the place) and the Grace M900 (fat, veiled, diffuse staging).

    Pros:
    - Detailed as hell
    - Massive midrange and low end detail. You can pick apart bass reverbs and different guitar amps used in multitracking easily
    - The most dynamic DAC I've heard. R2R DACs clearly tend to mess up transients (make them overly flowing) and ESS Sabre units tend to be either dulled or uniform slam city. Even better than the great AD1955 units (Bricasti M1, Lavry black) in dynamics. Dangerous' analog design is the best I've heard for DACs. Unless you like coloration. Then you can go with whatever you like and can't be helped. Too bad this isn't for you. Maybe check out Schiit or Burl or something.
    - This has a TI/BB chip (TI PCM 1789, the last before the hybrids) so timbre is great.
    - Not as warm as AD1955 based units in general and no TI "Advanced Segment" treble warmth.
    - All in one. Can easily run two sets of speakers (nearfield and big boys) and power your cans.
    - Great pot volume control
    - Great as an active pre
    - Built in headamp unsuilable for planars and IEMS. Dynamic cans or no cans at all. Planars and IEMs leave the hall.
    - USB works unlike many boxes from Schiit (USB doesn't work at all for me with some of their DACs) or Holo Spring (USB is basically non-functional). ASIO only though on Windows. No Amir Micro$oft bullshittery or Spotify allowed!
    - Balanced only. No RCAs taking up space.
    - No diodes or resistors on the inputs for maximum dynamics. Dumbasses will fry it.

    Cons:
    - treble has a slight DS hash but nothing bad. This still manhandles the Gungnir Multibit, Yggdrasil, nu Apple store Apogee, and RME wimp DAC. Not painful at all but not as clean treble as the Lavry.
    - still a pot for volume control. It beats transformers but resistor ladder would've been nice
    - no hot plugging. You will fry it analog hot plugging (no diodes or resistors to dull sound) and digital won't synch up right but at least won't fry due to digital transformers (not in signal path)
    - lack of mono, invert phase, and talkback functions. I need to compare this to the Drawmer units for desktop controllers.

    In short, the Dangerous Music Source is the best all in one desktop unit I've heard, besting the Lavry DA 11, Prism Lyra, and RME ADI 2 whatever units. Wimps and poseurs leave the hall. Tube dudes leave the hall. Planar wimps leave the hall. OCD tweakers leave the hall, DIY weirdos leave the hall. Part cost analyst, regulated smps whiners can stick a fork in an electrical outlet. RCA interconnect fetishists go kill yourself. This is good stuff. Use it right.
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2018
  2. TomNC

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    Thanks for sharing. I have been very interested in this vs Crane Song Solaris.
     
  3. BenjaminBore

    BenjaminBore Friend

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  4. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Solaris is incoming. Considering Convert 2, unless you guys would rather have me get the Dangerous Source instead. Planning to have a DAC-off with SoCal guys. Maybe throw Gungnir Multibit in there for a three way showdown.
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2018
  5. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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  6. Koth Ganesh

    Koth Ganesh Friend

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    I’ll totally credit Psalm for talking me into buying the Source. I had a brand new RME ADI-2 AIO and while I did like the DAC, the built in amp was polite at best. So when @PTS had his Source on sale ( at a great price), I bought It and sold the ADI-2.

    The Source is my office rig, replacing the Gungnir Multibit, Eitr and the Magni 3. It’s simplicity is just awesome. I’ve got the MacBook Pro into the Source through USB and using the built in amp. No USB issues, just clean, transparent music. I do not detect any coloration. Detailed with great extension on either end. I don’t have treble issues at all and that could be due to my older ears. I use only dynamic HPs, HD 600 mostly and occasionally the Fostex TH X00 and my modded Creative Aurvana Live (props to @gurubhai). My Audez’e LCD 2.2C sounded ok but not as good as it does from my BW.

    I did get a LPS to replace the SMPS and there is a slight improvement.

    To sum up, this is the best AIO I have owned and easily one of the best DACs I own. My other DACs are the Yggdrasil v1 and the Gungnir Multibit.
     
  7. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Convert-2 is supposedly better. I haven't heard it. The Dangerous D-Box was still really good but sounded different: less hard hitting, more diffuse. I would buy based on features. D-Box has more but is AES only, no clock (it will slave to what you what you feed it), rackmount only but has the analog summer and mono functions if you want them. Convert-2 is DA only, slightly overpriced (it's a Convert-8 with 1/4th the parts), and unsuitable for desktop use.
     
  8. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    HD 600. If you're not listening to CDs or FLAC rips on an HD 600/800 or good speakers in a good room (no JBL plastic garbage on a gaming PC in an untreated home orifice ahem office nonsense), there's no point in buying this or really any great source gear. You won't be able to hear the the difference.

    This isn't for Fortnite, IEMs, and anime soundtracks. This stuff will brutally tell you that your 80s music has high dynamic range but no bass punch, that modern rock and metal production sucks, and that all those posers don't even use real guitar amps anymore.
     
  9. PTS

    PTS Friend

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    All true, aside for the desktop part. I used the Convert-2 as part of my office rig for the brief time I owned it. Paired with a headamp, it works just fine.

    I found the RME ADI-2 to be a little better than the Source as a standalone DAC. It's slightly more detailed and neutral. The Source was warmer / thicker and a tiny bit veiled in comparison, while (I imagine) the RME stays truer to what the mixing / mastering engineers had in mind. Part of this is the huge amount of gain the the Source adds to the signal at the preamp stage. Running the Source into a 150W power amp (for speakers), I felt like a safe-cracker trying to dial in the right amount of volume with the amount of sensitively the dial had at minus the 9 o clock position. I would imagine this is less of a problem with lower wattage power amps or external headamps. If you're just using the Source as an all-in-one (as I did, initially) the volume control is more manageable (loud enough at around 12 o clock with most headphones).

    From the time I've spent with the Crane Song Solaris, I feel it might be better than all of the above DACs in terms of overall musicality and naturalness, while retaining tonal accuracy. The RME could seem touch clinical in comparison.
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2018
  10. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    How do you know what the mixing and mastering engineers had in mind? You don't. What if they were using Burl junk? Or Lavry boxes with all the opamps replaced by discrete junk for more warmth and fatness like Abbey Rode feeding their B&W diamond tweeter stuff that the 2015 Iron Maiden remaster preview vids revealed? Almost all modern classical releases were done on Digidesign pro tools hd trash and only some of them with an external clock. It's very presumptious and preposterous to say "this is what the mixing and mastering engineers intended" especially when modern converters smack stuff from the 80s and early 90s around (there's no way they could have heard that amount of bass clarity monitored off an 80s DAC) yet 80s and early 90s productions still trounce modern recordings for the skill of the engineers and actual worthwhile material being played. They still sound better and we're hearing them nowhere close to how they were intended to be heard on the gear of the day. You can speculate on however much you want all day but it doesn't make such claims and speculation any more than a conceived fantasy especially considering NS10s, old Genelecs, detail free old JBL horns, crappy old converters infinitely worse than a PS1, colored consoles (old Neve, SSL, and SECK), and wonky tape machines.

    The RME is audibly very compressed and veiled compared to everything else in it's category I've heard. Yeah its treble is clearer than the Source but that's pointless when it's so dulled and compressed as to artificially present more detail at once. Lynx Hilo is more dynamic than the RME and that thing is still compressed but tolerably so. The RME (and all other AK4490 based DACs) drove me mad with their total lack of real Dynamics. Snares and basketball kicks were wimpy as hell. Clipping was there but not painful. Source will throw in your face that some careless rapper or metal band clipped that snare hit that's properly 3x as loud as everything else. The RME is like a camcorder bootleg of a movie or some guys on the internet's crappy belt drive turntable rip of a record versus actually experiencing the real thing.
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2018
  11. PTS

    PTS Friend

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    Yeah, fair point. It's pure speculation on my part. I was just making a comparison with the Source, which I always felt was a little too warm and (as you say) a touch veiled at the top end. It's still super fun to listen to.

    I wouldn't go that far, but I understand where you're coming from. Listening to the Solaris made me realize that the RME adds a little processed sheen to the sound.

    Edit: Despite what Psalmanazar claims, I'm not repeating anything from gearslutz. I don't know what he's talking about, and last time I checked, "sheen" was a commonly used word.
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2018
  12. Hands

    Hands Overzealous Auto Flusher - Measurbator

    Staff Member Pyrate MZR
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    But that's the exact message you seem to be conveying, that you know.
     
  13. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Stop repeating what you've read on gearslutz. That was a matthew gray post on the gearslutz convert 2 vs crane song shitshow thread that the RME adds a sheen to the sound. Now that guy wants a convert 2 so yeah...

    I wouldn't say the source is veiled, just that it's slightly hashy and lacks the air boost tons of gear has. The RME is actually veiled. Your so called "sheen" may just mean that the Solaris is dulled. Sheen is often dialed into commercial masterings anyway. The crane song uses a custom filter and a discrete analog stage so it is more boutique than the RME with the standard AKM filters and TI Soundplus opamps. The Solaris could easily be the one that's more colored, especially as the higher end Crane Song gear is discrete class A but I'm not going to speculate without hearing it, I don't care to waste time or money to hear it, and this isn't the thread for this.
     
  14. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    I don't know. I'm saying it's more dynamic, more pronounced. What is true knowledge of the sound? I don't know and have no way of truly knowing and that true sound wouldn't been captured anyway as all adcs and tape are colored too. Does knowledge even truly exist? We are probably nothing but atoms and void. Our own personal views on things are personal conceptions based on personal perceptions. I'm just pointing out the misconception and repeating of a gearslutz post.
     
  15. k4rstar

    k4rstar Britney fan club president

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    Dangerous Source is good. Punchy. I like it. Stock power supply holds it back, but I also couldn't bring myself to invest in a LPS for it, so that must say something.
    Solaris is dull, not punchy. Lacks bite. I would work with it but get bored listening to it for more than five minutes.
    You are welcome to borrow my Source if you can sell it for me after.
     
  16. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    @Psalmanazar:

    Why do I doubt that you have truly auditioned any of this stuff? Do you use speakers? Some people use speakers too, which demands or places weight on certain sonic aspects different from headphones.

    As far as you are concerned: pictures or it didn't happen. Personally I think you are the one that reads shit on the Internet and then you triangulate your opinion on shit you've barely heard.

    Finally, what are you using as an amp and headphones? These things matter, finding components synergy is crucial. So do your recordings. If they suck, then go home.

    Try to write in a way that will help other people. You can always state your opinion (this is desirable), but this isn't PsalmDACSpot.com.

    Again, pictures or it didn't happen, especially for you.
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2018
  17. TwoEars

    TwoEars Friend

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    I have no beef in this specific topic but as a general principle if you don't trust someone then revoke that persons friend status, only trusted members should be friends. Goes for me as well anytime.
     
  18. BenjaminBore

    BenjaminBore Friend

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    You seem to convey wisdom and knowledge beyond what I possess, but, and maybe this is the wine talking, my gut feeling is that there are abnormalities in your posts past and present that don’t quite add up.

    I still have the RME ADI-2 Pro, I have spent real time with it in various configurations, and I ultimately didn’t care for it. I also consider it compressed, but among every possible positive and negative trait it has; veiled is the absolute last fuckin’ one I’d associate it with.

    Here’s my photo ;)
    [​IMG]

    You seem to have gone from absolute aggressive certainty to this cop out of a post. Even if there were merit to it at least qualify what real life practical experience and knowledge you are pulling from to reach the conclusions you so often convey with such incredible conviction.
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2018
  19. Jokko

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    Dangerous Source because money: )
     
  20. Xecuter

    Xecuter Brush and floss your amp twice a day

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    I hope he tries Convert 2, only dac that made me want to retire sfd-mkii SE++ completely.
     

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