I had never heard of Henry Audio when a viewer asked me to review their DAC.
Minutes later Børge Strand-Bergesen of Henry Audio responded he thought it was a good idea too.
So why not?
The web brought us sweet and souer.
One of the sweet things is collaboration between people from all over the world.
It brought us Linux and many other open source initiatives.
Like this small and affordable USB DAC.
It is already the third incarnation of the DAC which probably means loads of feedback
from the community has been incorporated in the current version.
If you are interested, go to the Henry Audio website and visit the community.
There are literally hundreds of pages on about any topic concerning this DAC.
And I mean hundreds of pages on each topic.
So if you got the time to spend, be my guest.
I will review the DAC as an off the shelf product that works right out of the box - which
in fact is what it is.
If you then feel to write alternative firmware or make hardware adjustments, please feel
free.
For suggestions and support the community will be the only place to go.
The housing is simple and functional, measuring 114 x 33 x 112 millimetres.
The front only holds the logo, the model number and a power LED.
The rear has a type B USB input, buttons for programming and resetting which I didn't
use and the analogue outputs on RCA.
That's all folks, nice and easy.
The printed circuit board has lots of empty spaces, test points and places to solder print
headers to.
We're not going to do that and judge the DAC 'as is'.
It is powered over the same USB that takes in the audio bits.
The 5 volts DC from USB is locally converted to 3.3 volts by ADP151 low drop voltage regulators.
For the DIY'er more power conditioning can be added here.
The processing is done by the Atmel AVR32 programmable microprocessor.
Two precision crystal oscillators drive the AKM4430 DAC chip that directly outputs analogue
signals at 2 volts max.
To achieve that charge pumps are used, formed by a collection of capacitors, positioned
around the DAC chip.
From there the analogue audio is fed directly to the two RCA connectors.
Like with the outside, there is little to tell about setting up and using the Henry
Audio.
Just connect a USB cable between the DAC and your digital source and connect the analogue
outputs to your stereo.
Only if you use a Windows computer, you need to download a driver from the Henry Audio
website.
Computers running Linux or Apple OS and network bridges I know need no driver.
The rest is up to the software you will use.
If you go for quality, you do need a bit perfect music player and you need to bypass the mixer
if that's not taken care of by the music player software you use.
The fact sheet, downloadable from the Henry Audio website, gives a clear description.
By the way, this is not unique to this DAC, all modern DAC's need this approach.
The sound quality a DAC offers depends partly on the quality of the input signal.
I don't mean the quality of the digitally encoded music but the quality of the USB signal,
timing wise and noise wise.
See my video "Connecting your DAC #2: how digital can go wrong".
Let me describe the way I test USB DAC's: first the Henry Audio DAC was connected to
my Apple MacBook Pro.
Music was played from Roon, with all DSP and digital volume functions disabled.
This gave a firm and deep low, a good mid range and a somewhat harsh high end.
Sibilance control could be better, cymbals were edgy and violins had a tendency to harshness
at high levels.
The stereo image was relatively shallow.
I have seen the same with other USB DAC's costing about the same, but also with more
expensive ones.
It is due to the noisy and jittery signal coming from a computer - and it is even worse
when using a laptop due to electronics that drives the screen.
The cure I use is the Alldaq ADQ USB isolator and an sBooster power supply.
The Alldaq provides galvanic separation and decouples the USB power line when an external
power supply is connected.
By using an audio grade power supply like the sBooster or UltraCaps - or at a somewhat
lower level the AudioPhonics LPSU25 or iFi Audio iPower - things get considerable better.
I used the sBooster BOTW P&P first generation.
The lows remained the same, the mids opened up somewhat more while the stereo image got
more depth and focus.
But the biggest difference was in the highs that cleaned up considerably.
Now, it is not realistic to spend almost 500 euros to have the Henry Audio sound better.
But you might try to use the AudioPhonics LPSU25 or iFi Audio iPower by using an cable
that feeds the USB signal from the computer to the DAC but cuts the power line to facilitate
an external power.
I actually think that Henry Audio should have such a provision built in: a simple 5 volts
power input connector that cuts the USB power feed.
Another solution is to use a network bridge like the Allo USBridge, a small board computer
based solution I reviewed earlier.
Currently costing about 175 euros excluding power supply.
Add about 65 euros for the mid quality power supplies I mentioned earlier.
Then the Henry Audio DAC really starts to shine.
Mid range opens up further, as does the stereo image while cymbals and strings sound more
real and relaxed.
For now there is a fairly good power supply - that is further cleaned by the Allo - and
a USB signal that is clocked with more precision.
The USBridge can run on a wide range of players and audio bridging programs, as you can learn
from the USBridge review.
This is a very good combo making more music at a very good price.
Even better sound quality was achieved when I connected the Henry Audio DAC to the SOtM
sMS-200Ultra NEO network bridge.
Now the stereo image is even more spacious, at about 50% of that of my Brooklyn DAC while
sibilance control and for instance cymbals are at about 60% of the Brooklyn.
But, to be honest, spending over 1700 euro's on a bridge and then only spend 300 euros
on a DAC isn't a well balanced investment.
I just mention it to make my point on clean digital sources.
The Henry Audio USB DAC 128 Mark 3 has practical limitations, like only one input - being USB,
no DSD or MQA and no external volume control.
But these things are clear upfront and to be honest, unless you already own a lot of
DSD music, I wouldn't loose any sleep over it.
DSD is great but the choice of music is rather limited and certainly doesn't offer many
popular albums.
MQA is more difficult since currently only Tidal is streaming MQA.
So again an easy choice, as are the other facts.
If you can live with these, it is a DAC that offers a sound quality that can grow with
you.
Ask Santa for the DAC for Christmas and start playing from your computer.
Then later on tweak it with a network bridge and power supply in easy affordable steps.
In the end you might have spent less then when you would have bought an about equally
performing streamer and you spend it in steps.
If you are handy with the soldering iron, you might go another route that might bring
you the same or better results for less.
But I won't council you when problems arise.
I need my time to find more interesting products like this.
And if you subscribe to this channel, or follow me on social media, I will keep you informed
too.
If you liked this video, please consider supporting the channel through Patreon or Paypal.
Any financial support is much appreciated and needed to keep me independent.
The links are in the comments below this video in Youtube.
Help me to help even more people enjoy music at home by telling your friends on the web
about this channel.
I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com.
And whatever you do, enjoy the music.
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