I put aside some time this weekend to set up the Loki. Well, that was a mistake. I should have just popped it into the system the night it arrived because is was super easy to install and set up. i choose Audirvana on the Mac because it looked relatively easy to set up from the instructions, and thats just how it turned out. In about two minutes I was up and running.
Now I have seamless access to all of the 6 current DSD releases!
Time to get down to some listening. The trouble of course it that none of the 6 available DSD releases are my bread and butter comparison tracks. The DSD files I do have represent some pretty well recorded material which helps to make the DAC shine but doesn't allow me to check for certain shortcomings that a few of my selected tracks can reveal as they challenge gear.
Subjectively I feel like it's missing just a little impact and dynamics on both ends, but don't think of it as completely gutless. Overall it's not doing anything seriously wrong. It feels like it leans ever so slightly to the warm side, but I need to listen to it with a few other amps and headphones before I sign off on that impression. Instruments seem to be well located. There is some space, but it's not especially airy.
If you've read about the Loki elsewhere you've already heard that the gain is pretty low. Not surprising from a USB powered device, right? I haven't measured the output voltage, but I am pushing the gain up on the headphone amp noticeably higher to reach normal listening levels. That said, I've got plenty of headroom left. I've heard reports of pops and clicks when starting and stopping playback. Jason explains this as a computer issue, not a DAC issue, and is the reason why JRiver and other players have the option to "Play silence on startup for hardware synchronization" and "Play a little silence on stop." I don't have the issue on the Mac.
The real test would be to start doing some comparisons between DSD files converted using software through my PCM DAC vs. direct through the Loki and also some direct comparisons to duplicate recordings in lossless PCM formats. Sounds like work to me...
In the mean time it's clear that it's a pretty capable little DAC and I plan to live with it just as it is before moving on to any serious comparisons.
Build quality is typical Schitt. Good, solid and reliable, but not necessarily a piece of art (the Schitt gang would surely disagree). It's functional and looks good on the rack. At $149 it's damn good! As you'd suspect, it's small and doesn't take much room, which for me is important as this is sort of a secondary source. The additional single ended input and "switch" to allow use of another DAC is really not useful to me in my set up. I'll just run another USB from the Mac to the Loki and select my output device in the software when I want to switch DACs. This will mean at times I'll be swapping a few interconnects around.
Ok, I'm ready for the DSD revolution! Which of course, may just go the way of betamax. For the $149 it took to get me ready, I'm having fun and won't loose either way.
