Amps & DACs

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. And even if real estate is not an issue, the audio performance and organic timbral smoothness of this unassuming little D-A proceesing beast belies its small dimensions. Stack it up with our HeadRoom Micro Amp 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.

The Ultra Micro DAC can handle input sample rates from 32kHz to 96kHz (32kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz and 96kHz). It then takes that input data and upsamples it internally to the 192kHz sample rate. The upsampling mechanism is one of the main differences between the Ultra and regular Micro DACs. Moreover, these uber-screamer upsampling chip sets aren't alone in there by themselves: 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.

"High end" product in an affordable price
Posted by plonter from israel on 2010-02-05

Recommend Product: Yes
Pros: high fidelity sound,very small,3 different digital inputs
Cons: (if I have to) have a 3.5" coaxial input instead of full size rca connection

Before I got this dac i used my ipod as a source to my headroom headphone amp. the sound was OK i guess,but far from perfect. I knew that the main problem lies within the ipod's own internal dac.
so I have decided to get the ultra micro dac in order to improve the sound,and it certainly did!... and by a big margin. now the sound is much more refined and defined all around, it is much more "Hi-fidelity".
I can be rest assured that I am getting the cleanest,optimal signal for my amplifier.

the great thing about a seperate dac unit is that you can use it with different digital sources like usb,coax,and optical.that mean you can use neither the computer or cd player or any other digital transport of some kind. many dac's out there doesn't even have a usb input,but the ultra micro does and it can make your computer sound just like a grand high price transport.
I haven't heard or owned other dac units,but comparing to the portable players I heard and some cd players, the sound is a whole different league.
it is also very hard to get great audio gear with a rather small price tag, and comparing to other dac's out there,the ultra micro dac gives a very high value for relatively little cash. it is also very well built,like all headroom products and paires excellent with headrooms' micro amp.

for some,having a 3.5 coaxial input instead of a full size rca one,can be a little annoying...but once you get the right adapter you just forget about it honestly, because the sound is so good that you don't even think about this very small issue. for the 3.5" analog output,a 3.5 to rca cable will do the trick and is not hard to find.
so..definitely a very high value product for me, and I very much recommend it.

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