Post by james on May 17, 2020 13:34:16 GMT 12
The Lusya SA9023A + ES9018K2M is a DAC.
The Lusya poses a real conundrum – what is a half decent sounding DAC actually worth?
I am privileged to work for a multinational that takes good care of the staff, they sent us to work from home weeks prior to the government edict.
At home I log into my work station earlier than when I would normally have left the house – while the work station is logging I get the music flowing.
During the working day music generally plays quietly in the background. Somehow enjoyable eases the way through the working day.
During level 4 the company furloughed the team for a week – what to do – paint the house? House painting is right up there with ironing on the fun scale. Fortunately the paint shops are closed – no painting for a few days.
With a little time on my hands and the unpleasant spectre of micro the manager dragging the team back to the office it was prudent to look into how to get music into my office environment.
Perhaps streaming from a phone or my DAP into some noise cancelling headphones would work. This system could provide music while the noise cancelling reduces the drone of my colleagues. Another benefit is the reduction in the ear damage that often happens when micro the manager realises I have put aside his last batches of instructions in order to perform other business critical tasks.
First up the DACs on the household phones were compared – of this small sample a Huawei P9 proved to be the best with mine as the worst by some margin.
Time to look a little further afield - research suggests the little Lusya could be a helpful product, small of form and big on clarity. My credit card receives another raping and the DAC is ordered.
Some days later while checking the mail I found a small package weighing about as much as the rates demand that it was nestled beneath
Opening the parcel revealed a well packaged USB stick with “Audio DAC” laser etched into its alloy case.
Mercifully the next weekend eventually rolled around and there was enough time to evaluate the Lusya – first comparison was against the P9 streaming music into the Genelec 8010s.
The Lusya was plugged into the USB port on a doze 7 laptop which easily located and installed the required drivers.
The same tracks were streamed from the same site at the best resolution that the site outputs (Allegedly FLAC).
A number of different tracks were compared with the baby Genlecs easily revealing the Lusya was cleaner and clearer than the P9.
Next up the Lusya was asked to drive my cans– the music sounded fine ( I only have cans for cancelling out low frequencies while travelling – they are not chosen for music quality) The bass that underpins Alan Taylors “Beat Hotel” (Stockfisch) is there and the music is clear with instruments placed where they should be.
Next evaluation was on system 2 – initially streaming into the McIntosh MC2255 and onto the Tannoy Ardens using the laptop to attenuate the volume.
As far as streaming goes the music was fine – Utube sourced tracks were as annoyingly irritating as they always are. Higher quality audio sites sounded better than the Utube rubbish and as good as I would expect.
Time for the lap top to spin some silver discs – first up was an excellent Japanese Stray Cats title – out of the Tannoys poured music full of dynamics and toe tapping fun,
The notes of Stanley Jordan’s “Elanor Rigby” (Blue Note) hung in the air in a satisfying manner.
“Beat Hotel” was represented as well as this system is capable of delivering.
Summary
The Lusya outputs music of a quality that is a little surprising. Tamed (or superseded) is the early ESS chipset top end screech with the midrange and bass present as they should be. Imaging and clarity ae fine.
This Lusya is not perfect but as a small format USB DAC the music is arguably superior to that produced by similar units. (Believe the flat bug brand is now available in more rainbow colours – disconcerting but if that is their target market who am I to quibble)
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Conundrum
What should a reasonable DAC cost these days?
$200? $500? $2000? $15000?
The Lusya is in your hands for USD $20.
