Of NOS NOSH & T

Thanks to Mr S. for bringing his Nos Dac to my place for a listen. Some very intresting thing were heard. As I was a Nos virgin, with no thoughts either for or against the small translucent device. I can see why It has created the fuss it has. I can see why, its popular to at first I would have described it as laid back, thats an over simplification. It presents music in the Quad way in that it seems to imparts little of its own character to the music presenting it " this is the music ....if you don't like it its not my fault". The resolution was very good, lots of nuaunces and fine detail, but didn't try to ram the music down your throat which for me is very good. Compared with the Modded X-dac which sounded way more up front and in your face, with more bass but less resolution...[might have to look at the internals again !]
Swapping the psu of the Nos for one I had didn't bring any great gains ....maybe a tad more control. Though you would need to get a significantly better psu to realy hear the difference.


One thing spotted was the effect of a transport has on the sound , using the Quad99 as a dac via a modded Denon, then swapping and playing the same track the quad transport was heard to be way supperior to the aging denon[well what would you have expected].

The other intresting comparrison was to run two identical cable [except the plugs ] throught the 99 to my preamp and switch between the two. The poorer plugs were audible.

Then lastly running the 99cdp as cd and pre straight to the power amps......clearly removed a rather dirty window provided by the 77pre....[going to have a poke round in that at somestage].

And lastly the sonic T-amps which MrS had come to have a listen to.....well I'll leave that to him, it wouldn't be fair for me to comment.

Still a very pleseant afternoon of some music a lot of swapping of bits.....

so after being feed and water Mr s and guest took there leave.
Nice pipe and slippers by the way !!

 

To add on Zanash's comments, here was the post that I'd nearly posted.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being able to visit chez Zanash and also meet his better and long suffering other half.

First off, thankyou for being such an excellent host, I can happily comment on the quality of the lunch that was kindly offered alongside being introduced to some new music that I've never heard before.

I'd gone for two keys reasons. Firstly to listen to and pick up a pair of Sonic Ts.
Zanash has a pair in situ running his MLs. A concern I had was their ability to drive the MLs, which I understood were not the easiest load in the world. I can happily state that there was more than sufficient headroom. I'll be trying them in my own NOS/Naim/Linn setup soon.

The second key part of visit was to have a good listen to Zanash's Quad/Quad/Sonic-T/ML setup.
I've not heard a pair of ribbons or similar since hearing a pair of Quad ESLs sometime ago, and I certainly wanted to hear how their hybrid ribbon/dynamic driver combination sounded. I personally thought they looked stunning, much better looking than any normal dynamic speaker I've seen, so seriously good WAF. They also appeared to be very room friendly. My initial thought was "too widely placed", but they worked brilliantly, and their lack of port and use of infinite baffle for the bass region seemed to help ensure that bass timing was very good (IMO most ported speakers seem to have bass timing problems, but hey, that's just me).
In use, well lets say that they clearly tread a somewhat different path to the one I've heard most of recently.
A few weeks ago I visited a mod from the PFM forums who's running a pair of big Impulse horns with a WAD valve amp. The horns had dynamics and leading edges to die for, IMO better than ANY system I've ever heard. However, the compromise was a bleached set of tonal colours, that I don't think I could live with.
The Quad MLs were basically the absolute opposite. Amazing stereo imaging, lovely full bandwidth sound and wonderful tonal colours. With slow jazz/blues it was pretty sublime.
However, the trade off was clearly there, and it was as if leading edges had been completely removed from notes, which as a Naim/Mana user, I found it a little disconcerting. The combo was certainly not fatiguing and I with non-rock music it does a great job, with rock, not quite as good.

During our experimentation the NOS was compared with Zanash's Quad 99, modded Denon CDP and an MF X-DAC.
Personally I thought that all of the above papered over subtleties and delicacies that the NOS does so well. Instead, all of them seemed to "add" a little to the sound, IMO emphasising certain elements of the presentation. With the MLs, I liked the Quad 99 and what it did, it certainly outperformed the rest of the kit already there. Between the NOS and Quad, well I think that's down to system synergy, and overall I didn't think there was much between them in the ML system.

So, thanks again for a great day.
Sometime this week I'll be playing with the Sonic-Ts at my place and will give an update on progress.

 

Very fair .....if we all agreed or had the same tastes it would be a pretty dull life.

I liked the NOS......if I was in the market to get a new dac it would feature very high on my list jostling for position with the 64....though they are definately at opposite ends of the presentation scale.

 

Nos Dac

Having read good things about the NOS DAC, I would be interested in acquiring one.

It's odd considering all the posts on the nos dac, that there is no information on how or where to purchase it.

Googling didn't produce any results, and an earlier post in the dac thread, resulted in no reply.

Assuming that possession of the nos dac doesn't entail membership of a bizarre cult, presumably there is a way that I can get hold of a nos dac.

Thanks.

 

I have one for sale, bloatfish, I pack items well, just ask HenryT if in any doubt. I know we have had differences, but I have no qualms selling to you.
there aren't many available from the usual source now.

 

bloatfish - "NOS DAC" is a type of DAC (Non OverSampling) rather than a specific product. They usually have no output filter either. A Google search on "NOS DAC" will return you tons of information on them (I just did it). They are usually a combination of the CS8412 digital receiver chip and Philips TDA1543 DAC chip. The "original" NOS DAC was (and is) made by 47 Labs. It's called the 4715 Shigaraki. Whilst a bargain in absolute terms at around $900 it's still not cheap.

Since then the simplicity of the circuit has inspired many DIY immitations as a Google search will testify. When people talk about a "NOS DAC" here they're generally refering to the ones made and marketed by Derek Shek from Hong Kong who sells them on eBay (allthough he appears to have no auctions going at the moment).

It's probably fair to say that I popularised the whole NOS DAC thing on this forum with my infamous Less is More? thread (which has quite a bit of info) a while back

Michael.

 

Michaelab

Thanks for that Michael.

Ian (aka SSB) did mention to me that you were kind of the guru of the NOS DAC! My google search only returned one company selling an actual (non pricey) nos dac, and that was scottnixon(US). Lots of advice as to how to make your own, but no use at all to a klutz like me.

I've heard Ian's 47 labs Shigaraki dac, and really would like to get hold of a clone - Derek Shek sounds just the ticket, but, I've never actually seen one of his auctions on ebay. I had hoped that somewhere in the UK there might be an underground production line, turning out nos dacs and gainclones, to an appreciative public.

I guess I'll just have to hang around ebay a bit more.

Akram

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3272&item=7521480935&rd=1

Here's one on ebay, looks to be identical to the one michaelab has from the images

 

That eBay one above is a Derek Shek NOS DAC, must be someone in the UK who's selling his s/h. The sellers name rings a bell, I'm pretty sure he's a member here but I can't remember who.

OTOH you can always contact Derek Shek by e-mail - don't have his address to hand just now but I'll post it up later.

The Scott Nixon DACs are very similar and also very highly regarded.

Michael.

 

Further the comments about transports I have been happily running my nosdac through a Marantz 67Se but when I hooked it up to a recently acquired Meridian 207 it really came into its own. i'm currently waiting for a psu from Derek Shek. Be interesting to hear waht it can do.

 

E-mail address for Derek is

[email protected]

You will not be disappointed.

 

Thanks to everyone for their help. Plenty to be going on with.

When I get a Nos Dac, I'll be using it with a Meridian 206 - I'll post what differences I think it makes.

 

Just look on this thread.

SCIDB