Gradient graduation? Back downstairs a feature that had worked well upstairs struggled. Most digital attenuators calibrate in actual decibels. Where -60 equals mute, -59 remains inaudible. In low ambient noise, one may thus hit -45dB before first faint sounds emerge. With inefficient speakers, low-gain amps and/or inner-city background noise, the threshold could be higher. Now zero dead space of wasted/inaudible volume steps equals more useful gradients. That's good. However, with our more efficient big speakers, 250-watt mono amps and XLR's higher gain, the DAM-1's jump from dead mute to -59 was too high. I just needed (cough) five clicks to get too loud. Even low-gain mode's strangely marginal cut didn't expand things properly. Compressed hot recordings needed 25dB of pre cut in Audirvana's 64-bit dithered attenuator to create useful range in Soundaware's own code. Calling that counterproductive and far from a best-case scenario, I focused on uncompressed recordings to win an extra ~15dB of range. The lack of hard ± vol controls on the front panel reflects the late addition of variable mode. Should the wand misplace or its battery expire without a replacement on hand, we face a frozen setting. That, the lack of display zoom during volume changes, the big mute-to-sound jump plus lo/hi gain's insufficient gap (1.7/2Vrms, 3.4/4Vrms on RCA and XLR) make variable mode not fully mature yet. In the right context like our upstairs, it works as is. So much for another brief appearance of the curmudgeonly critic.

The blank spots in the DAM-1 display's first line are MQA unfold (left) since I don't have one MQA file; and filter type (middle) since the latter is only available in 'normal' mode and here I show SAW.

On my earlier mores x morale query, the DAM-1 slotted itself between DSDAC 1.0 Deluxe and Pasithea. On illumination and transparency which "saw all the way down to the ocean floor", the Cees Ruijtenberg R2R with split processing of the least significant bits took the obvious honors. The JianHuji Deng deck placed more emphasis on tone fill and textures. That played more generous timbres over going leaner Dutch. The DAM-1 split the res difference then added most but not all of the DSD1'024 DAC's textural generosity. With our resident upstairs hardware, Soundaware's tuning and magnification powers beyond our iFi and Denafrips would be the next level. Sold! Even its volume gradients celebrated their graduation there. Cheers! With our more sensitive higher-gain main rig also sans preamp, the DAM-1's volume implementation wasn't yet ideal and its resolution on par with but not above the current residents. Here then I'd not be inclined to make any DAM-1 changes.

Back on USB regeneration, running USB into our usual Singxer SU-6 then AES/EBU out into the DAM-1 vs USB direct into the DAM-1 with its internal regen module active, the Singxer was marginally fuller/richer. I obviously couldn't eliminate potential cable variables. That said, I thought that while not identical, the Soundaware function was 'on the level'. By not requiring a second box for that, it will appeal to less-is-more integrators.

Graduate of the Soundaware Academy? In many ways today's job reminded me of my CHoco Sound Emei assignment. Both nailed sonics and build quality on the first attempt. No complaints on either. Rather, genuine enthusiasm. Yet both fell equally short on the legibility thus contrast, backlighting and font sizes of their displays from a standard 3-4m sitting distance. On that the DAM-1 piled on with a low-gain feature which rather than at least halving the standard voltage, only cuts by a barely useful fraction; and gets too loud far too rapidly from mute to first sound. I expect that the necessary tweaks all fall within a future firmware remit to retrofit by emailed code. Adding physical front-panel controls for volume must obviously wait for a new production run. But no client using a DAC in fixed mode will hold their breath or care in the least. They'll never use that feature in the first place to wonder what all my fussing is about. To play their field, I went up the stairs now with an icOn 4Pro passive-magnetic volume control nursing XLR signal from the DAM-1 set to fixed mode.

Hola, hombre. More mores on guttural conviction and tonal bone. An ace track to make the point is the dark moody "Mapushanelere Attim Postumu" (I made my home in jails) from Rubato's BIr album. It features bass clarinet, cello, electric bass, Turkish banjo aka cümbüs and octave-doubled vocals. It can feel a bit heavy even murky; like too much gravy, not enough zingy vitamins. With the Soundaware in fixed-gain mode and a tapped autoformer handling lossless attenuation, resolution as penetrating in-sight moved up to banish the overcast; and timbre voluptuousness improved in tandem. That gave particularly cello and bass clarinet wonderful sonority. Whilst beaucoup digital signal cut had already sounded shockingly good—Ancient Audio's new top CD player compared analog to digital volume then implemented the latter for being superior—here none was still better. I extinguished the display altogether and left the DAM-1 in SAW mode so upsampling of PCM, NOS for DSD. If this were my shiny new kit and not just a loaner, that's where and how I'd use it. One question I haven't the answer to is how much the costly super-cap PSU adds over the standard brick. Hoping to make their best impression, Soundaware had only dispatched the big boy.

Use mouse-over loupe function or right-click to open in new window at full size. With a similar display size, the icOn demonstrates just how large volume figures can get to cover distance.

The jungle drums bang'n'boom in Soundaware's marketing to magnify mode madness. Any ESS DAC with user-defeatable upsampling already does three modes: native PCM without upscaling; PCM upsampled to 352.8/384kHz with Sabre's on-chip algorithm; native DSD. Likewise for better AKM and TI chips. The DAM-1 then adds on-the-go DSD resampling like our iFi or Cen.Grand do but only to DSD 256 not their 1'024; and a disconcertingly named NOS mode which really upsamples to 352.8/384kHz again, just moves that off their main chip onto a separate FPGA to host their own algo. When the jungle drums go silent, the truth prevails: the DAM-1 sounds bloody brilliant in all modes. It's actually mode/format agnostic. There are small differences but none take away or add anything. They just go slightly sideways. If you want to play sliders, have at it. If you want to really listen, pick one mode then forget all about the M word. I picked SAW because my name starts with S. To segue back to my earlier question—"if one knows where to look, mounting evidence suggests that hifi components from the PRC now go head to head with top-tier competition from Europe and the US. Are Soundaware about to join this league?"—the obvious answer starts with Y. The DAM-1 is just one or two firmware updates from crossing the final T on some functionality items applicable only to amp-direct users. On build quality and sonics, it's already very much there even for them. For all others, it's home free without qualifications. It's another shaolin ambassador (assassin?) for high-performance hifi from the Middle Kingdom. It's another arrow in the Vinshine Audio quiver, another happy lunar discovery:

Hot DAM!

Postscript: Having solved the curious case of the spare transformer as simple human error, another mystery needed solving. I always believed that native DSD can't be edited or attenuated without converting to PCM first. We already know how variable mode was a late addition to first production. Soundaware simply activated the on-chip algorithm of their DAC silicon of choice. Now certain readers will wonder. Did the firm forget to rewrite their display for variable mode's DSD processing? Even in heavy attenuation, my sample showed untouched DSD64 ⇒ DSD64 as though the DAM-1 were the world's first DAC to attenuate raw DSD. "You're absolutely right, native DSD can't be edited directly. When we activate digital volume, incoming DSD converts to PCM, applies attenuation then converts back to DSD then to analog. The display was designed to only show the digital input and output format. We don't show any intermediary processing steps." Mystery solved.

PPS: Extremists will rejoice in the three included umbilicals between PA1 power supply and DAM-1 DAC. They speak further to Soundaware's obsession with variable tuning. Wherever Mode Madness demands a follow-up, inveterate tweakers have three short power cables to roll and play more sliders.