Emotiva Bigego Dac

[GaryCook]

I've been meaning to post up a review of this for a while, it's not a very nice day outside so I'll take the opportunity;

For the last couple of months I've been using a Big Ego connected to Airmotive 4's with a MacMini as the source. The sound quality using the analogue ladder volume control in the Big Ego controlled by the Mac volume slider is the first thing I noticed, even at very low volumes there is no loss of clarity like there is with a digital volume control. Overall the sound quality improvement from the BigEgo over my previous external DAC, a Behringer UCA202, is about the same step up as when I went from the internal MacMini DAC to the UCA202. For a home office near field sound system it was very good before now it's quite amazing.

On Apple computers it will support sample rates of 44.1k, 48k, 88k, 96k, 176k, 192k, 352k and 384k with no drivers required. The LED indicators tell you the sample rate of the music Big Ego is currently playing. It also supports bit depths of 16 bits, 24 bits and 32 bits.[/background]

https://emotiva.com/products/dacs/dacs/big-ego




The effect of the BigEgo digitally controlled analogue ladder volume control is the easiest to identify and explain, it's actually quit stunning how low the volume can go and still have so much clarity. The sound stage isn't any higher or wider (than with previous DAC's), but it may well be deeper, which with near field speakers is to be expected. The placement in the sound stage is rock solid, you can hear where Nora Jones hands are located on the piano keys. Brushes on cymbals have that metallic "ting" that I hear as being realistic. But it's not Sabre DAC like, which I find mildly annoying. The long rolling thunder intro to Dire Straight Hybrid SACD version of Brothers in Arms really does roll around the sound stage, I had to play it 3 times just to listen to the tone, rumble and motion, mesmerising.

If you do a lot of listening to computer generated music through speakers or headphones and want a quality USB DAC then I can highly recommend an Emotive BigEgo.


Happy New Year
Gary