M2Tech Evo DAC Two Plus

Has anyone here have any experience with this DAC?
I have one for audition and I think it has a very clean, fast and detailed sound without beeing harsh or fatiguing!
Quite good imaging too!
It has no problem playing from PC or Mac up to 384/DSD128 but I wish it could pair with my Rpi3/Moode too! It is supposed to play natively in Linux but I can not make the rasp to see it!
From my experience with the first generation products of the same line the adition of the PSupply and Clock makes a very noticeable improvement!
I think that the M2Tech has a quite "pure" house sound and that's something I like a lot!

http://www.m2tech.biz/it/evodactwoplus.html

The other products of the line:
http://www.m2tech.biz/it/evoclocktwo.html
http://www.m2tech.biz/it/evosupplytwo.html

 

I've not heard it myself, but I have a friend in Venice that has.

Her impressions were not positive - though I won't attempt to express the full vulgarity of her lucid Italian expletives. But, interspersed between the profanity and questioning of various lesser bastard's parental lineage, was a nice rant on the futility of yet another straight-from-the-data-sheet ESS implementation with the manufacturer calling out all the on-chip features as if they'd done something special and not just used all the built-in stuff.

 

I have no technical expertize and I can not comment on that... may be it's a good thing that they didn't do anything special!
I reported here what I heard
Did she listened to it along with another DAC?

 

I don't know the full list of what she compared it to though I can find out, but yes it was heard alongside other unit.

I know the competitive bar wasn't set very high and I do know that there was a Modi (not multi-bit) and a Gustard X12 involved.

Stock data-sheet ESS implementations all tend to sound the same (for good reason).

 

I don't know if you are saying this positivelly or not.
I do not have experience with other ESS DACs but I read and listened to comments that might put me off. On the other hand this DAC is not

 

Does it sound like this, by any chance?

 

what is this a Silk Cut advertisement?

 

I'm not.

But I've also not heard the DAC in question, so I'm speculating based on my friend's impressions, my knowledge of what she likes, and my own experience with myriad ESS implementations (some simple data-sheet jobs, some very elaborate with lots of custom/special work/techniques/technology). In general if Gia tells me something performs unfavorably compared to something like the Gustard X12 that's enough for me not to want to spend my own time listening to it.

If you like it, that's grand, I just can't think of any reason it should sound notably different to any other data-sheet implementation of the same chipset, especially off USB power.

 

I quite respect that! I am not trying to make someone like it! I just mentioned my impresion of it!

It's not usb powered though...

 

It doesn't have to be but it supports it, at least per the manufacturer's claims:

"DXD and DSD conversion, 32 bits resolution on USB 2.0 Audio Class compliant port, coaxial and optical S/PDIF inputs, single-ended outputs on gold-plated RCA females, clock input on BNC female, clock info output on Toslink™, IR remote control with HID capability, same form factor of all Evo Two products, can be powered by the USB bus, by the stock 9V wall adaptor or by any 7.5V to 15V power supply, Evo Supply Two recommended.

I'd bet that a) it's not disconnecting the USB power-lines at the input when an alternate DC source is used and b) is using USB power to power the USB input/receiver. I could be wrong, but that's typically how such things tend to be done at this level (and at higher levels in a depressing number of much more expensive products).

On the upside, that might mean the USB circuitry is un-powered (and therefore unable to spew switching noise into the chassis) when it's not being used as the interface.

 

Yes I would guess the same about the usb interface and power! This is the case in most DACs of this category as you say!

I don't understand what you mean. If the USB interface is bus powered how could it be "un-powered" so that it won't pass noise to the mashine .. sorry may be my English is not quite good!

 

From the manufacturer:
"No galvanic isolation is provided in your DAC. The difference in using the wall adaptor is that power is drawn from the adaptor instead than from the USB bus."

 

However, it's likely that the VBUS from the host is still connected, so you're going to get noise from it whether you're drawing power or not, especially if it's something like a laptop.