Rein Audio X-DAC Review

Rein Audio is a flattering new firm but has rapidly turn well known for a full line of audio and AC cables. They moreover outline on bringing an amplifier to market, the X-Amp. Even after spending a garland of time on the Rein website, we still do not know as well ample about the company. we was able to end that Rein may means "pure" in German. we moreover remarkable that arch planner Tomasz Wilczak had a ten-year story working for "well known" German audio companies. It moreover seems their products are now existing usually around the Rein Audio website online store (I think they are now looking US distributorship).

The condensed X-DAC retails for $780 and is a really popular component. Out of the box, it tender me with its erect quality. It is really well done and inspires certainty when you collect it up out of the wrapping to install. According to the Rein website, high end DAC chips from the British firm Wolfson are used. There are 4 digital inputs: two SPDIF Coaxial, a SPDIF TosLink, and a USB. The digital inputs are selectable around a considerable china doorknob on the front, and hoop 192 Khz, 24 bit information around SPDIF, and 96 Khz, 24 bit around USB. There is moreover an IEC jack for joining a detachable power cord, and other considerable china doorknob for powering on and off. There are two immature LED lights on the front panel, a to show power, and a to show a USB connection.

Set Up Listening:

I set up the X-DAC using a Shunyata Venom AC cable, a Kimber OPT1 TosLink cable, and a DH Labs D-75 coaxial cable. For audio sources, we chose my Squeezebox Touch pennon and a Marantz CD5003 CD player. we used usually the singular finished outputs, running Kimber KCTG interconnects in to a Densen B-200 preamp. There is a set of offset XLR outputs as well, but the Densen accepts usually RCA inputs. It usually took a couple of days to obtain a hoop on what the X-DAC was doing, and that was vouchsafing the song pass by with a bold, full bodied, and realistic quality. we of course had never listened of Rein Audio before, but now they had my attention.
The X-DAC leans toward the somewhat comfortable side of things, with a brilliance of tinge and we find immensely appealing. A stream craving of mine, Dengue Fever, out of Los Angeles has strike it out of the playing field on their many new CD, Cannibal Courtship, from midst 2011. FLAC files streamed by the Squeezebox Touch advance alive with excitement, taught bass, and tons of clarity. Lead thespian Chhom Nimol’s summons call is charming and lifelike.

I not long ago rediscovered an manuscript low in my collection, Eye of the Hunter, by Brendan Perry, a half of the classic, hard to define, Dead Can Dance. Perry’s deep, well-recorded voice comes by with majesty. The songs on this manuscript are dejected ruminations that sound similar to a long mislaid soundtrack to a unconventional thriller. we found myself melting in to the music, not the smallest bit anxious about "evaluating" the X-DAC. This, to me, is explanation the X-DAC is carrying out all really right. Of all the underling $1000 DAC models from assorted manufactures that have transfered by my listening room, the Rein section is the many innate sounding. we do not meant there was any loss of detail, or smoothing over. Not at all. we think the X-DAC pulls this off since it is so offset sonically.