The other big difference the 4.1x has brought over the 1.1x is in dynamics. I am really surprised that the output stage in a source component can have such an impact in terms of creating a properly full-range sound - something that I had assumed would only come from bigger speakers and beefier amplification. I have been used to the lower reaches of pianos, cellos, basses, etc being not quite as defined and present as the rest of the frequency spectrum - and had put that down to the limitations of the combination of my Living Voice OBX speakers and the singled ended 211 amp driving them. The transformer coupled output of the DAC 4.1x leads to very low output impedance which, combined with the substantially beefed up power supply, provides incredible bass definition and authority - which gives a totally different architecture to the sound. The capacitor-coupled output of the DAC 1.1x leads to a relatively high output impedance which, apparently, will tend to attenuate bass response into many preamps.
I was expecting the bass to be different to the DAC 1.1x, and it is. All up, it weighs a substantial 22 KG.Īnd weighty is exactly how it sounds. The whole thing has been re-cased in a very substantial Italian Modu case - the kind you would expect to find containing a 250W solid state power amp. The signal path has been shortened as much as possible by sitting the I/V transformers underneath the digital board, and junking the output board in favour of just the separate valve holder tag boards. And copper and aluminium screening is used to separate off each section - including even the different sections of the dac board. There’s lots of smoothing capacitor overkill on each of the three different power supplies. The original mains transformer now supplies only the analogue output power supply. Two additional mains transformers are added: one each for the digital and the analogue sides of the digital board. Lots of attention has been paid to the power supplies. Output transformers are Audio Note High B C-Cores. All of the resistors are Audio Note or Shinkoh tantalum. Capacitors have been replaced with Black Gates, V-Caps, Mundorfs, and Elna Cerafines.
Audio note kit 4 upgrade#
This one has had some extensive upgrade work.
Audio note kit 4 full#
Given that I preferred the relatively lowly DAC 1.1x to anything I had heard before, I was very interested to hear what the full Audio Note dac package could do, and managed to find a heavily modified AN Kits DAC 4.1x, which includes two of the key AN DAC elements - valve rectified and regulated power supply, and transformer coupled output. But the AN DAC 1.1x sounded different, and more ‘right’ than anything I had heard before - mainly in the way it portrays how instruments and voices energise the air around them, sounding to me more realistically lively and dynamic. My long term favourites were the Audio Synthesis DAX (Ultra Analog version) and the Audio Synthesis DAX Discrete. Until I tried an Audio Note DAC 1.1x, about six months ago, my experience had been that differences between DACs were to do with relatively subtle - if important - nuances of flavour and presentation.
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