Didit 212 DAC/Preamp with Remote
Very good condition and full working order with remote wand and power cable. Just a few light marks.
Didit DAC212 is designed around multilayer circuit boards. With multilayer board designs, DiDiT can assign one layer to an unbroken ground plane, which will give a very low inductance design with reduced crosstalk. All power supply layers are designed in differential pairs. High and loThe first thing noticeable with a DiDiT 212 DAC in my system was how the sound became more focuses over the current Astin Trew Concorde. There was a crisper, tighter and more articulated presentation.
During Nils Lofgrens ‘Keith Don’t Go’ notes are completely embellished with vigour and prominence, reaching dynamic purity as the weight of a string climbs into its polished high pitch. Decays had a nice “floatiness” as they wandered through the darkness of background silence that aided the completeness of the plucked string.
Combining three dimensionality with true rhythmic musicality Lofgren’s vocal begins again after his solo and there is no loss of definition to the instrument with it retaining its tonal qualities in full.w current traces are paired and separated from each other.
Rhythm and pace sit equally with instrument timbre and coherence in the 212’s world. The DAC never sounds exasperatingly fast, but the quickness in which it deals with leading edges is undoubtedly accurate and controlled. Beat driven music has an instant toe tapping appeal and smile factor which is just so addictive.
Play any good acoustic music which has strong female vocals and the 212 is pretty stunning. Too many people in my experience sacrifice vocal density for vocal clarity. It’s so easy to find a piece of equipment or system that does clarity of a vocal, which generally makes the midrange over-forward and the upper mids (especially in female vocals) too hard and etched. This leaves the density of tone thin, lacking body and cohesiveness.
The DiDiT combines projected strong and vibrant vocals with great tone and dynamic expression. Upper bass notes are controlled and the texture of the body of a lower octave is detail rich and natural in tone, expressing real timbre from start to finish, culminating in fantastic liquidity.
I really can’t state that the DAC is coloured in any way. I would like to say that it’s neutral and coherent, but there’s more to it than that. The vibrancy of details, control of tones and the rhythmic beating heart of the 212 puts it smack bang on my ‘great all rounder’ list of components due to its fine balance.
Yes I’ve heard other DACs do vocals better, the Lampizator Big 7 does vocals like no other DAC I’ve ever heard, a magnificent mix of holographic and organic frequencies, but on the flip side I never found it truly rhythmical. The Astin Trew Concord, which missed out by a fair bit when reproducing the purity of instrument tone and timbre but was a far better fit with a larger range of equipment and genres, for reviewing this was really a must. Being unselfish and gearing a system to remain reflective of a great range of musical styles and other product signatures is crucial.
The DiDiT 212 (costing less the both the above) for me sits somewhere in between the two, but on reflection of this comment I feel it does more than each respectively. The 212 hammers home how strong product design matched with carefully selected components doesn’t need to cost the earth in order to supply the end-user with a fantastic high-end product.Imagine a large block of ice being sculptured by the sculptor. During the process it’s sawn to remove large unwanted sections, then chiselled and hammered into shape, but the edges are rough still and the piece of ice still remains opaque. Some amateurs may stop here – relating the sculptured form to the subject matter, although a true artist will get a blow torch and hot water to finish the piece to give its transparency, clarity and sparkle, at the same time smoothing and polishing its surfaces. This is my DiDiT 212 analogy.
We exchange the word smooth for controlled in the analogy, for me a smooth sounding piece of equipment rolls off frequencies, damps tones and dynamics and has a relationship with the description ‘warm’. The 212 is far from this, its insight and control shows complete clarity right through its image and like the ice sculpture is truly liquid.
Bass performance, whether playing an instrument or synthesized beats, is as I said rhythmic, but the insight, especially into upper bass notes, is fantastic. Many many times I comment on products lacking body in the upper bass, making way for a more detailed interpretation which often is too stark and almost makes the music sound miserable and lifeless. I was listening to some Fleetwood Mac at the time and really was drawn into this area of the sound. What I found was there are the smallest areas of separation between the lower bass and upper bass which seemed to alleviate smear, gave better timing and the lack of crosstalk allowed the detail rich upper bass to really have an area of its own that never became loose of the entirety of the sound and eradicated that blend of tones that can also muddy things a little down below. Intense passages at loud levels give dynamic drama that is very exhilarating.
A kick drum kicks with drive and prominence, fleshed out and proud of the drum basket and lower bass notes emanate at volumes which really roll deep into the room without any loss of their leading edges, so make sure you have a strong amplifier for your loudspeakers to compliment the drive.
A high end piece of equipment which is designed to really extract a lot of information from a piece of music will always have it suffering when playing less than good recordings and the 212 is no different. The question is how badly will the sound diminish, is it liveable with and how often do we need to be playing less than adequate recordings?
For me, I play less than great recordings a lot! When I’m not reviewing or having a listening session and as I don’t watch a lot of TV I explore Spotify frequently and when friends come over at the weekend it’s easy to hand them the iPad (as a remote) and allow them to choose whatever they wish to listen too. Of course I’m going to report a loss of quality and resolution, but what I admire about the 212 is its musical appeal and character. This remains present and although there are definite shortcomings, the overall experience is still massively enjoyable and that’s got to be key!USING THE DIGITAL PREAMPLIFIER
Next up was using the 212 as a DAC/pre connected to some Cairn MEA monoblocks…Wow! I never believed that I would be so impressed with it as a digital preamp. Usually I will use a Rowland pre into the Cairns and they get used very often here. The MEA’s have an absolutely huge soundstage, wall to wall and floor to ceiling. With the JR pre the sound is bouncy and just so energetically enthralling, they really are a hidden jewel.
With the 212 doing the forefront duties I found a new sense of inspiration for the sound. Bass notes were tighter and deeper, midrange had a further increase of clarity over the JR pre (which adds some warmth to the sound) and due to the well balanced nature of the Cairns the increase in clarity and perceived top end resolution pushed them on sonically, with better synergy, authority and most noticeably pace and rhythm.
CONCLUSIONS
The DiDiT 212 from Rients and the team in the Netherlands is a stunning piece of engineering, a real classy looking product with an equally classy sound – especially for the money.
For me the vocals are standout with this DAC, if you are a valve fan vocally, but go potty at the pitfalls such as the looser bass and the loss of that bottom most octave and want to try something in the solid state arena again, then I’d suggest you have a ‘money back’ listen.
Apart from the vocals and bass pace nothing else really stands out, or is that the wrong way of phrasing this? What I mean is the tonal balance, coherence and down right musicality of this unit allows you to be truly emerged in the music, rather than ever being drawn to certain areas. It’s always easy to listen to electronics, but it’s not often we just relax into a truly musical presentation and leave everything else outside the door.
Note: I really enjoyed this one. So much that I’ve bought two, this one and the soon to be released balanced XLR version which will also support HDMI over I2s which is my primary digital connection.
Update: as well as my purchase a good friend of mine Andy telephoned me for another DAC recommendation, he currently uses a VAD DAC (same as our editor Stuart). I of course recommended the DiDiT for his Graaf/Audionote/Kondo system and he absolutely fell in love with it through his mega-bucks horns.
Sound Quality – 8.9/10
Build Quality – 9/10
Value For Money – 9/10
Overall – 8.96/10
Price at time of review: €3000
