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Power listening. Although the KRK Rokits offer good performance especially for office use, many consumers will want to pair the merits of the Bel Canto with better kit. In either case the optional LNS1 supply is actually essential. Even with Rokits the sonic limitations of the inexpensive supply included in the box are readily apparent. Such cheap in-line switchers spread the electrical equivalent of evil thoughts in all directions. There’s not much if any ambience, the bass is muffled as if bubbling up from the bottom of a murky lake and the presentation is grainy, gritty, eroded and skeletal. Timbres seem to have slid upwards, the noise level is much higher and overall there’s a significant loss of detail.


Like the DAC chassis, the compact black $495 LNS1 is a completely finished attractive product. The bottom of the supply has four relatively thick rubber discs to protect any surfaces underneath. The piece is clearly labeled and sports a custom connector on the 12V power cord that provides strain relief. For those with ground loop problems there’s also a ground lift switch. The only shortcoming is that at the DAC end of the power cable the barrel plug doesn’t even use a retaining nut but just sort of rests somewhat loosely in the jack. Otherwise the LNS1 is certainly worth the extra money in terms of performance and appearance.


How good can it get? To get a fix on the absolute performance level of the Bel Canto and what you may reasonably expect to hear with higher-end amps and speakers than the Rokits, the next stop for the DAC 1.5 was my reference system. Naturally one would not permanently drive $100K of amps and speakers with a $1395 DAC. However pairing the Bel Canto with truly high-end gear gives a definitive sonic characterization of the product’s numerous virtues, which will be increasingly revealed as the quality of one’s playback system heads upwards. My audio microscope has evolved over the past 18 months to the point that whatever is on the master tape one will hear*. Within a single album such as the classic and lovely Proprius Now the Green Blade Riseth, the Technical Brains amps, Weiss DAC 202 and Grimm Audio CC-1 master house clock (applied to the word clock input of the Weiss) easily allow one to sort the tracks according to the various recording venues, polarity, positioning of the performers and microphones. Not much is left to the imagination.
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* How does one know what's on any master tape unless one was present during the recording session? - Ed

Laptop source. For this round of critical listening, all the music is produced by Reference Recordings. Some tracks are native 176.4kHz, others are native 88.2kHz. Several of the tracks are also available in 44.1, which is quite helpful for making comparisons. Reference Recordings has a reasonably uniform house sound and engineering technology that allow one to focus on the DAC 1.5’s sonic qualities rather than trying to untangle someone’s recording techniques. Under Keith Johnson’s direction one can be assured that every possible inflection and nuance of each performance made it into the final mix.


The J. River Media Center (JRMC) software uses WASAPI mode and downsampled a few of the 176.4kHz tracks to 88.2 kHz for evaluating USB (limited to 96kHz by the lack of a custom driver and hardware limitations of the DAC’s adaptive USB chipset) and Toslink (on my Qosmio laptop Toslink maxes out at 96kHz). The S/PDIF was tested full bore at 176.4kHz using the Audiophilleo1 as a USB-S/PDIF converter. Music streamed wirelessly without a hitch across a multi-device LAN at rates up to 96kHz, the USB port’s maximum. And of course native 88.2kHz recordings were used as well although there didn’t appear to be any sonic difference.


Two of my favorite high-resolution musical selections are the Sullivan—before the days of Gilbert and Sullivan—overture from his music for The Tempest composed in 1861 in Leipzig at the age of 19. This piece features stirring themes, lively dance numbers, soothing and dramatic sections all of which illustrate the subtle complex timbres of a classical orchestra. The outtake from Kurt Weill’s music for Three Penny Opera has a smaller collection of instruments, mainly brass, winds and percussion. Marni Nixon sings Kern and Hammerstein’s 1939 All The Things You Are accompanied by a pianist, harp, flute and strings. This track is 44.1kHz.

Starting with the USB input and using the LNS1 external power supply, the Three Penny Opera outtake had good midrange timbre, deep bass extension, adequate transients but the upper midrange and treble seemed somewhat tight and dry. This latter observation seems to characterize USB-S/PDIF implementations with high jitter. The decay and reverb of a triangle for example are clearly truncated. Overall the sonic results are certainly melodic but constrained. The Sullivan overture sounds a bit shaky, clumped and grainy, with the soundstage occurring primarily between the speakers without much vertical extent. As the strings become louder there’s some hardness and strain, with flutes sounding a bit gauzy. Marni Nixon’s song also comes across somewhat unsteadily, not grounded or particularly coherent. There’s almost no sense of studio ambience and the overall volume seems much louder than it actually is. To me this is a giveaway that there’s considerable jitter and distortion.


I tried three USB cables. The first was a generic 5m; the second an elegant jet-black AudioQuest Carbon 3m; and the third the flamingo-humbling flamboyant fuchsia WireWorld 2m. Yet there weren’t any audible differences to my ears. So much for USB. It’s good enough for the Rokits but for systems several notches higher in resolving quality they’ll be limited by the DAC’s adaptive USB interface. The Toslink input at 44.1kHz and 88.2kHz delivered a major improvement in sound quality. What an upgrade, for free! And sources that support 192kHz sample rates will sound even better. The overture was much more coherent and smooth, the soundstage significantly wider but with about the same limited height. There was no sense of strain on the louder string passages, flutes were solid and there was considerably more decay, ambience and reverb. Definite progress.

The Three Penny comes to life with a lot of air and reverb. There’s good resolution, which allows one to see into the mix. Still there isn’t much depth to the soundstage and the music lacks sparkle, which is another instance of my overall impression that the high frequencies are somewhat rolled off. But blat! from the brass and transients in general come across well. The flute, harp and strings accompanying Marni begin to sound realistic and although the piano accompaniment is a bit muffled; coherence, body and reverb are all improving. Finally the S/PDIF input fed via the Audiophilleo1 USB-S/PDIF processor powered by a Red Wine Audio Black Lightning battery supply was even better than Toslink. Marni immediately gained a great deal of sonic weight, with more ambience and reverb coming primarily from the wall right behind her although the room’s corners were hinted at. The piano accompanying her was just slightly diminished in presence but the strings, harps and flute all sounded quite well. Through the Audiophilleo1, high-resolution tracks came across at their native 176.4kHz data rate and curiously the curvature of the soundstage changed considerably. There was more center fill and instruments previously pushed towards the perimeters were much closer to the center.


The strings in the Sullivan overture are now smoother and one can more clearly differentiate the brass instruments. The triangle parts are highly defined with a sense of action. Definition is up, noise way down. The sound is engaging rather than tedious. Still there’s not much soundstage height or air and timbral richness isn’t what it could be - but now one enters the realm of rather subtle criteria. The Three Penny selection has even more blat!, with a good sense of layering front to back in the soundstage. The music is sprightly, with realistic impact and transients.

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