The Official Neko Audio Thread

[craigsub]

Tweak City Audio is pleased to welcome Neko Audio to our forum. Here is a link to their site: Neko Audio

Wes - please introduce yourself to everyone, and enjoy yourself on TCA !! :huge:

[NekoAudio]

Thanks, Craig! :cool:

You may know me as Josuah on various forums. I recently launched Neko Audio after trying to find a DAC where I didn't have to compromise on quality or price. That's a bit of a hard proposition in today's market. So like any crazy engineer I decided to build my own! It's been a little over a year since I started R&D, and the D100 stereo DAC is the end result.

Everyone who has heard it so far has been extremely impressed. Which has made me very happy. :huge: The D100 is unique because it uses a passive transformer-based output stage, and only the best components. This brings a clarity and accuracy that you have to hear to believe. (Or you can ask me about it. :p)

A quick feature list:

• Wolfson WM8804 S/PDIF receiver
• Dual mono Burr-Brown PCM1794A DACs
• 0.1% output resistors and high quality Jensen JT-11-EMCF output transformers

There's lots more information about the D100 on its product page.

[the7comeback7kid]

Welcome welcome...way out of my payscale, but looks like a solid product. Would like to hear peoples impressions regardless!

[NekoAudio]

Well, I can post some of what I've heard so far, but some might accuse me of being a bit biased. :p But in all honesty if I thought the D100 wasn't better, I would've shelved the prototype.

I heard an obvious and significant improvement over the Slim Devices Transporter. A lot of the distortion is gone and attack is better. Less smearing between individual notes.

Also significant improvement over the Emotiva DMC-1. Bass is much tighter (musical attack again), more pronounced, and it sounded like less harmonics. There is greater dynamic range, and some additional clarity due to less distortion and better musical attack. The DMC-1 was still doing bass management (because I'm a bass head and need my subwoofers).

Slightly more info in the DMC-1 comparison because that's what I use for my HT right now.

I have someone comparing it against an Audio Alchemy DDE plus DTI+ over the next few days and I can post his thoughts later if I get his permission.

[Mike_TX]

DAC sub-forum?

Shouldn't this be in the DAC sub-forum, since, you know...it's a DAC?
:scratchchin:

Mike

[NekoAudio]

I'm just a visitor. :salute:

The information shown on the Tweak City Audio web site refers specifically to the Ground Zero forum as a place for other vendors. :scratchchin: I guess this thread would be for all Neko Audio products; it's just there's only a DAC right now.

On a side note, I listened to a NAD C542 versus an Audio Alchemy DDE v1.1 and DTI+ (both owned by the person I mentioned earlier). The 10-year-old Audio Alchemy can't compete against the NAD C542 which is a few years old. This actually matches with the opinion he's had for a long time, so I suspect he'll actually be comparing against the NAD C542 instead.

[the7comeback7kid]

If you are going to pose that this should be here since there will be other products you better share what else Neko has down the pipe:cloud9:

[NekoAudio]

Totally speaking from a theoretical point of view! Everything else is secret. :sly:

[Mike_TX]

I'm just a visitor. :salute:

The information shown on the Tweak City Audio web site refers specifically to the Ground Zero forum as a place for other vendors. :scratchchin: I guess this thread would be for all Neko Audio products; it's just there's only a DAC right now.

On a side note, I listened to a NAD C542 versus an Audio Alchemy DDE v1.1 and DTI+ (both owned by the person I mentioned earlier). The 10-year-old Audio Alchemy can't compete against the NAD C542 which is a few years old. This actually matches with the opinion he's had for a long time, so I suspect he'll actually be comparing against the NAD C542 instead.

NekoAudio -

It's whatever Craig wants.:salute:
Just wondering.:scratchchin:
Welcome on board.:thumbsup:

Mike

[craigsub]

Guys - I moved it to DACS.

Wes - when you get other products, we can always open a thread in the appropriate forum. :crowd:

[NekoAudio]

Cool beans, Craig. :)

So I have a mini review from the person who compared the D100 against the NAD C542. He "thinks the [D100] is better" but isn't sure. He also thought it was really weird to have balanced XLR outputs instead of RCA ones. :p

[NekoAudio]

Neko Audio Bay Area GTG - Mar. 14

I'll be hosting an audio GTG on Mar. 14. More details over at the Neko Audio Forum.

P.S. Attendees will need to be a little more "civilized" than some recent threads in TCA have been. :o

[Cheeseboy]

I'll be hosting an audio GTG on Mar. 14. More details over at the Neko Audio Forum.

P.S. Attendees will need to be a little more "civilized" than some recent threads in TCA have been. :o

Hello Joshua,

I have a very unique CD player that I love. The improvements I'm trying to make are in the output section. It is a JVC XLZ1010TN. It features the K2 interface. I was thinking that the outboard DAC could give me the "well built" op amps that are lacking in the unit. It does have Burr Brown DAC's. I really like the resolution it gives me.

Would the Digital out on my XLZ1010 keep the K2 aspect and allow me the higher quality DAC's and opt amps in your unit?

Steve

[NekoAudio]

Ah, this is where you meant you posted your question. :)

The short answer is I wouldn't know if the K2 would still apply when using an external DAC, but I am doubtful it would matter. The long answer:

I'm afraid I don't know a whole lot about the K2 interface you're referring to. From what I could glean, it appears to be an processing circuit used internally by the CD player. If that's the case, then it may not apply to the output S/PDIF signal which would be fed to any external DAC. If it does apply it to the S/PDIF signal, then yes it would still be used with an external DAC.

However, K2's claim appears to be a reclock and clean-up of the digital signal to reduce jitter and the possibility of bad receipt due to voltage variance. Stereophile has some XL-Z1010TN jitter measurements that show best case 51ps and worst case 713ps. (Stereophile measured at the DAC outputs, so no indication if the K2 is applied to an S/PDIF output.)

But I'm not sure how much value that technology would have today. The Wolfson WM8804 chip I use performs reclock and de-jitter and states a resulting jitter of 50ps.

In other words, it's highly likely a modern high-end S/PDIF receiver is going to do a better signal clean-up than the older K2.

If you do like the XL-Z1010TN and just want to play with the output stage, you could swap in a different op-amp. Op-amps all use the same package and the pins are kind of large so they're easy to work with. Switching in a new DAC chip would be harder because they're not swappable like op-amps.

The D100, however, does not use any op-amps. I talked a little bit about why I choose to go this way in this thread.

[Cheeseboy]

Ah, this is where you meant you posted your question. :)

The short answer is I wouldn't know if the K2 would still apply when using an external DAC, but I am doubtful it would matter. The long answer:

I'm afraid I don't know a whole lot about the K2 interface you're referring to. From what I could glean, it appears to be an processing circuit used internally by the CD player. If that's the case, then it may not apply to the output S/PDIF signal which would be fed to any external DAC. If it does apply it to the S/PDIF signal, then yes it would still be used with an external DAC.

However, K2's claim appears to be a reclock and clean-up of the digital signal to reduce jitter and the possibility of bad receipt due to voltage variance. Stereophile has some XL-Z1010TN jitter measurements that show best case 51ps and worst case 713ps. (Stereophile measured at the DAC outputs, so no indication if the K2 is applied to an S/PDIF output.)

But I'm not sure how much value that technology would have today. The Wolfson WM8804 chip I use performs reclock and de-jitter and states a resulting jitter of 50ps.

In other words, it's highly likely a modern high-end S/PDIF receiver is going to do a better signal clean-up than the older K2.

If you do like the XL-Z1010TN and just want to play with the output stage, you could swap in a different op-amp. Op-amps all use the same package and the pins are kind of large so they're easy to work with. Switching in a new DAC chip would be harder because they're not swappable like op-amps.

The D100, however, does not use any op-amps. I talked a little bit about why I choose to go this way in this thread.

Thanks for adressing this question. So I'm going to find some op amps and go for it. I'm sure that I could find a Retrofit specialist that would make a good reccommend.

I have had the pleasure to have owned this CD player for a long time. It's a hand built engineering sample. The technology way back when was very far ahead of the pack. I would love to run the K2 into your DAC and see what happens. If fit works that way.

I marked my calender for the DAC GTG. I'm looking forward to it. Please keep me on the mailing list for this. It has been very difficult to move the turntables into the garage for good. It is getting easier to think about storing music on my laptop and processing through high tech devices that upconvert and process.