HAKAI playground

A DIY digital music streamer with exceptional performance

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David Neel
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by David Neel »

tokenbrit wrote:I really can't decide this time round - the latest clips are more difficult for me to split than the ones from earlier today...
Would be interested to hear them fed by the LSNAS.
You really want me to spend all night re-wiring!!!

FWIW, I think the difference between the two motherboards is much bigger on the NAS, and this doesn't make it easy for today's comparisons. In an ideal world (after spending another £100) I'd have two 3160s.
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tokenbrit
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by tokenbrit »

David Neel wrote:You really want me to spend all night re-wiring!!!
No, it's ok. Really. Unless you want to ;)
I was just trying to understand why I found it easier to pick 1 from the first pair of clips today than either from the second pair...
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by Lego »

Musically i think it is quite close listening through laptop speakers, but going by listening to my Hakai at friends house last night someone mentioned with the Hakai they could hear high-frequency distortion so i'd guess the first one was the Hakai as my speakers were distorting with clip 1
I know that tune
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by David Neel »

tokenbrit wrote: I was just trying to understand why I found it easier to pick 1 from the first pair of clips today than either from the second pair...
Interesting. I would suggest that the NAS is actually as important as the streamer. I haven't re-checked, but a few weeks ago I found the LSNAS more musical (and better sonically also) than a Hakai NAS with 3050 motherboard. Since then I have tried the 3160 board in a Hakai NAS and found it to be better than the LSNAS (see post on the NAS thread for some qualifications). So that's what you were hearing in the first ADS/3 vs Hakai 3050 streamer comparison.

For the second set of clips I simply swapped the Hakai SSD sets over, so the 3160 became the streamer and the 3050 became the NAS. Possibly (probably) the poorer performance of the NAS masked the streamer performances?

I've today reinstated the LSNAS and the ADS vs Hakai 3160 differences are now more obvious. The Hakai is also susceptible to rack changes. It works better on my new Quadraspire than either Isoblue or Lack (as does everything else).
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David Neel
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by David Neel »

Lego wrote: Musically i think it is quite close listening through laptop speakers, but going by listening to my Hakai at friends house last night someone mentioned with the Hakai they could hear high-frequency distortion so i'd guess the first one was the Hakai as my speakers were distorting with clip 1
It was.
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Lego
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by Lego »

David Neel wrote:
Lego wrote: Musically i think it is quite close listening through laptop speakers, but going by listening to my Hakai at friends house last night someone mentioned with the Hakai they could hear high-frequency distortion so i'd guess the first one was the Hakai as my speakers were distorting with clip 1
It was.
Can you hear the distortion/clipping thing on the Hakai David?
I know that tune
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by David Neel »

Lego wrote: Can you hear the distortion/clipping thing on the Hakai David?
Now that you mention it....

In the room, the ADS/3 is undoubtedly "cleaner" and free from distortion, and the Hakai brings not only musicality but a little "edge".

Now, is that the motherboard or the DAC? Is that why I've marginally preferred the 3050 as a streamer? Too many questions for an evening when I'm revelling in the LP12 being moved from its Lack table to Quadraspire SVT bamboo with the bronze upgrade. I may not return to digital sources for some time... :)

PS: the new Charles Lloyd/Lucinda Williams album is rather good!
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by Sopper »

David Neel wrote:
Lego wrote: Can you hear the distortion/clipping thing on the Hakai David?
Now that you mention it....

In the room, the ADS/3 is undoubtedly "cleaner" and free from distortion, and the Hakai brings not only musicality but a little "edge".

Now, is that the motherboard or the DAC? Is that why I've marginally preferred the 3050 as a streamer? Too many questions for an evening when I'm revelling in the LP12 being moved from its Lack table to Quadraspire SVT bamboo with the bronze upgrade. I may not return to digital sources for some time... :)

PS: the new Charles Lloyd/Lucinda Williams album is rather good!
It’s the ESI dac I guess
(The RME ADI-2 dac is dead quiet)
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by Lego »

David Neel wrote:
Lego wrote: Can you hear the distortion/clipping thing on the Hakai David?
Now that you mention it....

In the room, the ADS/3 is undoubtedly "cleaner" and free from distortion, and the Hakai brings not only musicality but a little "edge".

Now, is that the motherboard or the DAC? Is that why I've marginally preferred the 3050 as a streamer? Too many questions for an evening when I'm revelling in the LP12 being moved from its Lack table to Quadraspire SVT bamboo with the bronze upgrade. I may not return to digital sources for some time... :)

PS: the new Charles Lloyd/Lucinda Williams album is rather good!
Will check it out David, thanks for that
I know that tune
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by Lego »

Sopper wrote:
David Neel wrote:
Lego wrote: Can you hear the distortion/clipping thing on the Hakai David?
Now that you mention it....

In the room, the ADS/3 is undoubtedly "cleaner" and free from distortion, and the Hakai brings not only musicality but a little "edge".

Now, is that the motherboard or the DAC? Is that why I've marginally preferred the 3050 as a streamer? Too many questions for an evening when I'm revelling in the LP12 being moved from its Lack table to Quadraspire SVT bamboo with the bronze upgrade. I may not return to digital sources for some time... :)

PS: the new Charles Lloyd/Lucinda Williams album is rather good!
It’s the ESI dac I guess
(The RME ADI-2 dac is dead quiet)
Maybe not burned in yet, how old is the RME
I know that tune
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by Sopper »

Lego wrote: Maybe not burned in yet, how old is the RME
A few months old, low working hours.
I doubt that it’s getting different.
It’s measurements are incredible:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/foru ... -dac.2582/

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lejonklou
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by lejonklou »

Sopper wrote:
Lego wrote: Maybe not burned in yet, how old is the RME
A few months old, low working hours.
I doubt that it’s getting different.
It’s measurements are incredible:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/foru ... -dac.2582/

“it is the best measuring DAC so far in my portfolio!”
Some very good measurements there. I'm quite tempted to buy one of these to test it thoroughly.

Interesting also about the single sample rate when using USB input. This makes a lot of sense to me if the limitation is due to performance considerations. A new version that can instantly change sample rate might not perform as well.
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by Spannko »

To me, when listening to the Akurate, the guitar sounds like it’s accompanying the vocal, as if they’re performing a duet. I don’t hear this on the Hakai because it’s not very easy to pick out and follow the tune being played by the guitarist behind the vocal.
Last edited by Spannko on 2018-10-26 11:08, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by matthias »

lejonklou wrote: Interesting also about the single sample rate when using USB input. This makes a lot of sense to me if the limitation is due to performance considerations. A new version that can instantly change sample rate might not perform as well.
This seems to be an "issue" with Windows only as reported further down in the forum after the tests.

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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by lejonklou »

matthias wrote:
lejonklou wrote: Interesting also about the single sample rate when using USB input. This makes a lot of sense to me if the limitation is due to performance considerations. A new version that can instantly change sample rate might not perform as well.
This seems to be an "issue" with Windows only as reported further down in the forum after the tests.
Aha...

I jumped to the conclusion that they'd done certain optimizations that prevented on-the-fly change of sample rate.
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by Sopper »

2 clips from me again.
Difference between RME ADI-2 Dac and ESI Gigaport HD+ dac.
Especially noticeable @ 1:26 in the clips

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pgshbu2lsm4in ... 2.MOV?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wvz74xp8i2m0p ... 5.MOV?dl=0
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by Spannko »

I prefer the second one.
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by tokenbrit »

Thanks for these, Sopper. I enjoyed the first one until I heard the second one... Preferred the 2nd.
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by lejonklou »

Sopper wrote:2 clips from me again.
Difference between RME ADI-2 Dac and ESI Gigaport HD+ dac.
Especially noticeable @ 1:26 in the clips

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pgshbu2lsm4in ... 2.MOV?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wvz74xp8i2m0p ... 5.MOV?dl=0
I find the first one better. There's something about the flow in it that seems lost in the second.
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by Sopper »

This is getting interesting...
I was convinced we would all agree at the same clip

Listen again later!
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by ThomasOK »

Just as I was finishing dinner last night this track came on. Since it was perfect for the day, a great piece of music and also sounded so good on my J3455 HAKAI I thought I'd record a bit of it for all of you. No comparison, just good music.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2bcgbkm6v1gag ... 7.MOV?dl=0
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by magben02 »

[/quote]
Sopper wrote:2 clips from me again.
Difference between RME ADI-2 Dac and ESI Gigaport HD+ dac.
Especially noticeable @ 1:26 in the clips

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pgshbu2lsm4in ... 2.MOV?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wvz74xp8i2m0p ... 5.MOV?dl=0

Clip no 2!
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by Charlie1 »

I prefer clip 1
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by Tendaberry »

For clip no. 2: the maracas in the beginning have more rhythm and the guitar solo from 1:26 is more interesting, I wanted to hear it to the end.
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Re: HAKAI playground

Post by lejonklou »

Tendaberry wrote:For clip no. 2: the maracas in the beginning have more rhythm and the guitar solo from 1:26 is more interesting, I wanted to hear it to the end.
I think the opposite. In clip number 2 they are clearer, I can hear each nuance more easily. But they tell me less musically.
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