HeadRoom Ultra Micro DAC

We admit it probably borders on the edge of crazyland to put one of the world’s finest set of upsampling DAC chips in a chassis this small, but we figure you want great sound at your desk just as much as you want it in your listening room -- so long as you don’t destroy your workspace clearing room for big pieces of audio gear. The little Ultra Micro DAC is just the ticket: a world-class DAC that needs about the same desktop real estate as a cup of coffee. Stack it up with one of our Ultra Micro Amps and, well, you might have a hard time getting any actual work done but you’ll certainly love hanging around your amazing-sounding computer!

How it Works

Although the Ultra Micro DAC is an extremely high performance audio device, it’s very simple to use: plug in your computer to the USB input, and/or other digital sources to the optical and coaxial S/PDIF inputs; select the desired source using the front panel switch and, voila', your carefully decoded and lusciously tasty analog signal appears on the rear panel line-out. From there you can take the line-out and plug it into a headphone amp, pre-amp, or integrated stereo amp. Keep in mind the HeadRoom Ultra Micro DAC is a 'stand-alone', non-amped device and MUST be connected into some type of dedicated headphone amp stage for final amplification to headphones.

Electronics

The folks at Cirrus Logic and Analog Devices would likely flip their wig if they saw their flagship DAC and Asynchronous Sample Rate converter chips shoehorned into the tiny Ultra Micro DAC. The CS4398 is the best performing DAC chip in Cirrus’ line-up with numbers like 120dB dynamic range and -107dB THD+Noise, and the Analog Devices AD1896 Asynchronous Sample Rate Converter up-samples all incoming digital data to 24-bit, 196kHz data with an interpolation algorithm using its own ultra-stable clock to insure a jitter-free output data stream. And these uber-screamer chips aren’t alone in there: the Micro DAC has five independent power supply regulators for the various analog and digital sections including one solely for the aforementioned sample rate converter clock; a TI PCM2902 chip handles the computer USB to S/PDIF conversion before sending the numbers off to the ASRC and DAC; local decoupling with ultra-low ESR polyphenylene-sulfide film capacitors is provided at each active analog stage; resistors are low-drift, low-noise, 0.1% metal film parts throughout; and a multi-layer circuit board holds it all together while keeping the signals apart... Man, it's still hard to believe we could actually fit all that stuff in there!

For a photo of the Ultra Micro DAC circuit board and more information about the electronics take a look at our DAC Features Page here.

Build

All that gadget goodness is wrapped in a lustrous and amazingly sturdy black anodized aluminum enclosure and urethane bezels. What’s a bezel? It’s that rubber piece around the front and back panel. They’re pretty handy as they act as bumpers protecting the amp, and they allow you to securely stack the Micro Amp and the Micro DAC together.

All HeadRoom Ultra Micro DACs are hand-built in Montana, USA.

Accessories

An external AC power-supply "wall-wart" is included with the Micro DAC. For optimal performance of HeadRoom's Ultra Micro Line of products, the optionally available HeadRoom Astrodyne Power Supply is highly recommended.

*The Micro DAC does NOT include any interconnect cabling. If using the optical digital input, you will need an optical cable, and if using coaxial digital input, you'll need a coaxial cable-- which can be found here. To hook up your Micro DAC to the Micro Amp, you will need a mini 1/8 to 1/8 cable. We recommend the Cardas 6 inch mini to mini cable. For additional cables and lengths, browse all of our cables.