Teac NT503 Networking DAC

I will very shortly be able to confirm what the unit can and cannot do, I'll keep you posted.

 

So awesome!

Thank you.

 

Great! I am interested in what you think of the sound, 505 vs 503.

The original announcements (last November?) said Roon and MQA implementation at a later date; I haven't heard when, though.

 

I am going back and forth with the audio store and he is looking into these two features; MQA and Roon. Tidal seems to be set but these two other features are labeled firmware updates as you know. The question he is trying to determine is the timeline; are any of those firmware updates available now and if not do they anticipate a date and what is the hold up. If it is just to become certified it seems likely all should be good soon but if its something else then the future updates are questionable in my mind.

As soon as I hear I will post. I am not interested in the player without all the "as advertised" features available. The DAC is a lot more expensive than the previous model, the NT-503, and the cost can't all be the higher end chip and the few other improvements.

 

I just received notice that my new NT-505 is on its way. Hopefully I will have it set up in my system Thursday. I will report back next week on my thoughts and in particular how I think it compares to the NT-503 that I had for a few days, at least as far as I remember how that unit sounded, which was pretty terrific.

 

Picked up the NT-505 today and am currently breaking it in with Redbook playback. I need to perform a firmware update and when this is complete pretty much all the advertised features will be fully functional with the exception of Roon. Hopefully this will go without a glitch. I believe TEAC is still in the process of being certified by Roon so my understanding is adding Roon will be in another firmware update.

Right out of the box the unit sounds wonderful. Very dynamic, detailed, textured, nonclinical or harsh but still extended in the high end and with great bass. I have read reports of the unit being on the warm side, but with my KEF speakers and Backert Labs preamplifier I am not hearing a shift towards warmth. The sound seems very balanced to my ears, and far from digital sounding so maybe that is why some people are calling the unit warm sounding. I am very happy I decided to go with this unit. Once I have figured out the firmware update and have connected to my Network/PC for access to my files and Network streaming I will report back on The Good, Bad and Ugly. I doubt there will be any Ugly to report on though. I also read that the App for Android devices has been really worked on and improved.

 

Does it sound any different than the NT-503 you previously auditioned?

 

That is a hard question to answer since weeks have gone by and as I mentioned I felt the 503 sounded excellant. Based solely on memory and noting I only have four hours on the new unit I would say the 505 is cleaner sounding and more extended and detailed in the higher frequencies. If and I did believe the 503 had a slightly warm sound the 505 does not have a warm sound, it is extremely nuetral while being very musical. If I had the 503 would I be tempted to upgrade? I cannot answer that yet due to not having upgraded the firmware nor using their App or seeing how it integrates with Tidal and other streaming programs. Based solely on my early perception of sound alone probably not due to how much more the 505 costs but if the Network portion of the unit is as good as they are promoting then maybe. I will update all my impressions in a week or two, once the unit settles in and I have all the firmware inplace and streaming programs working. I also must qualify that with the 503 I was using a generic coax cable to interconnect the transport with the DAC and now I am using an Audioquest Carbon coax cable and if you believe in cable magic maybe this also is playing into what I am perceiving as a sound improvement.

 

If the 503 is on the "warm" side of the spectrum, I found it isn't nearly as warm as the Marantz DAC, at least in my system. So 'slightly warm' is probably a good description.

Thanks for the update!

 

Both have a more analogue sound than digital, which is why I believe the slightly warm sound applies. The 505 seems to bring more detail and air to the high frequencies over the 503 which is why I feel the 503 is slightly warmer sounding than the 505. The warmth in my opinion in the 503 may be an ever so slightly roll off in the higher frequency range and I do not notice this with the 505. Both have no digital glare, and are great DACs, well worth auditioning.

 

Thank you for your honest opinion. The NT-503 is a superb DNLA client and network media streamer so I trust its successor will be at least as good.

I told you before not to sweat if too much about built-in support for Tidal, Roon or other internet media services. I stream them all to the NT-503, directly from one of the PC's at home and leaving aside my opinion about Tidal and/or MQA, the option of streaming media from the internet to a network media streamer by using a local PC as a proxy is working superbly well.

 

Major differences between the 505 and the 505
USB DAC
505 = AK4497 × 2 (L/R)
503 = AK4490 × 2 (L/R)
Some people may feel this is not significant, I believe I am hearing a difference in more upper frequency detail.

DSD & PCM for the 505 = 22.5MHz maximum & 11.2MHz maximum
DSD & PCM for the 503 = 768kHz/32-bit maximum & 384kHz/32-bit maximum
I believe this is another benefit if you are someone who downloads hi-rez files or streams hi-rez sites.

The 505 up converts and filters to higher levels. I have not found this to be of importance to me at this time. From the Redbook discs I have played and tried out the various settings for up conversion and filtering I did hear differences but they did not sound like an improvement. The area I want to experiment more in is the up conversion from PCM to DSD and the 505 up converts to higher levels of DSD and on certain Redbook discs this may be a benefit but I cannot speak to this yet without further experimentation. These features may be a benefit in streaming or on downloaded files but I have not had a chance to experiment there yet.

The 505 offers a features the 503 does not. One is Bulk PET Transmission, I need to read up more on this to determine if this is something that offers a benefit or not. The area it is suppose to offer improvements is in streaming high-rez content, if it does what it says or not I cannot speak to at this time. Another is MQA decoding. This is a debated program that some people believe in and others scoff off as just a money maker and a control tool. The fact that it came with the unit is fine with me. I can experiment with a completely unfolding a file and see what I think. I lean towards this as a gimmick and a money maker for the manufacturer and a way to control what we listen to but I will try to keep an open mind. The last feature difference that I am seeing is in Bluetooth streaming. The 505 can stream in the following formats: LDAC™, aptX™ HD, AAC, SBC and the 503 only can stream using aptX™, AAC, SBC. I am not sure how that will affect my use, I think not much but it is nice to know the formats are available. The 505 also has built into the Network portion of the unit Roon, Tidal, & Qobuz. Roon as far as I am aware is not working at this time but is promised as a future firmware update. I have no reason to believe this will not happen but I believe there are work arounds that can be utilized until the firmware is available. This is important to me because I plan on subscribing to Tidal and will want to use Roon.

The bottom line is the 505 is more expensive than the 503 and the question on most peoples minds I would guess - is it worth the extra dollars? I felt it was worth the extra money. The extra features, top of the line DAC chip, all make a premium product that based on my comparison of the two units also has an improved sound to my ears so the extra money is paying for all this and why would they not charge a bit more. Make sense to me and seems fair. The TEAC NT-505 is less money than many other premium DACs currently on the market and I happen to like the sound a lot more with the TEAC than some of those other DACs in the $2 - 3K range that I had an opportunity to listen to. Bottom line - if you were considering a DAC this is certainly one to audition and I would not bother with the 503, however if you have a 503 and was wondering if you should upgrade, I would at least give it a listen, but to abandon a great little DAC to move up to the 505 may not make sense unless you are interested in all of the new features the 505 offers. The sound difference is there but may not be great enough to warrant a change that will cost you a bunch of money.

 

I have two components from TEAC at home. The first is the NT-503 that is used as my DAC and network streamer in the living room and the other is an AI501-DA integrated amplifier in the study. I like them both and came to two conclusions. The first is that they are much better than a lot of premium branded equipment I've seen and heard and the second conclusion is that TEAC is a company that couldn't sell a life jacket to a drowning man and its ineptitude at marketing and promoting its products is even more legendary than the TASCAM or ESOTERIC brand names.

 

I've listened to a stack of TEAC mini components, CD player/Integrated Amp at my dealer and was blown away at how good they sounded. It was in a room full of moderate to higher end components and an array of speakers. When I walked through the room I note how good the sound was. Without close examination I had no idea which speaker was being used or what component they were being driven by but the sound really caught my attention, it was extremely musical and filled the room. I inquired and he said it was the little stack of TEAC Reference Line (I believe the AX-501 & PD-501 HR) running a pair of KEF LS-50 speakers. It really caught me off guard how this pairing sounded. The sound was well above their costs. I agree TEAC is a real sleeper and if you are tight on space their line of compact components are hard to beat.

 

That's like what I have in the study. A pair of KEF LS50 and a AI501. I love the diminutive unit it's size is perfect for the corner shelf and it has VU meters, which automatically makes it better than every other integrated lacking VU meters.

I think you will be very happy with your NT-505

 

Update on my TEAC NT-505:

My big issues were streaming and was the TEAC ROON certified as advertised.

I finally fished a cat 6a line down from my office, where I had set up a NAS music drive, down to my Music Room, which luckily is directly below the office. Previously I had been having no luck with my TEAC communicating with my PC, which as mentioned above is located in another room. I had downloaded their software but did not have a good connection to my TEAC so I was forced to set up a hardwire connection. I now have direct access through the network, from my router to the back of the TEAC. Once I downloaded Roon it immediately saw my NAS drive and the TEAC. This made me really excited since I was not sure if the TEAC was indeed ROON certified. I now believe it is due to how quickly ROON detected the DAC and once the ROON App was loaded onto my Android I immediately saw all my NAS drive files. Once down in my music room with the tablet I switch the setting on the DAC to Network and bam MUSIC played perfectly. Now I am learning the ROON program which looks pretty amazing. I was thinking of subscribing to Tidal but with all the bad press it is receiving at the moment I think I will hold off on any streaming service. I have enough to explore now that I have access to all my music files. ROON has listed my total albums at 5,398. I think this is a bit misleading due to some of my compilation album files have been fractured into small one song albums due to the compilation album not having any tags and ROON reading each song by an artist as an individual album by that artist and not part of the compilation album. I am now slowly plodding through these files to either tag the compilation albums worth keeping or deleting them to clean up the directory. There aren't too many files like this but enough to make a rather large project if I choose to keep and tag the files. Those albums that are by a single artist but poorly tagged ROON seems to keep them together as an album and does a pretty good job labeling them, however sometimes minus the artwork. For those albums I guess I will go and find the artwork and add it to the albums metadata. Good thing I am retired and looking for projects.

Bottom line - still very happy with the DAC's sound. It did take an extremely long time to fully break in. I do not use any of the filters nor have I played much with up sampling to higher resolutions because my CDs played through the DAC sound wonderful. I am also pleased that ROON integrated so easily. Is the program worth all the money they charge, no sure yet but I do have 14 days to figure this out.

 

My final thoughts on the TEAC NT-505 Network DAC.

Sound:
Detailed but not etched, great soundstage, neutral not sure about the chip warming things up as advertised, doesn't seem that way to my ears, just a really nice sounding and balanced sound through the frequency range, good bass. Lots of filters to customize the sound if that is what you are into or settings to push the resolution higher or to upconvert PCM to DSD. I have no DSD downloads so I cannot discuss how well this feature works in terms of sound. I pretty much have kept it to its native conversion. I ended up getting rid of the Audioquest Graphite coaxial cable. I felt the silver made it a little on the bright side. I am using a Granite Audio Micro-75 cable which is a high end copper cable and it sounds wonderful.

Bluetooth:
I have only used the bluetooth feature a couple of times to verify that it worked and a few friends have come over with files on their phones and we listened to them over bluetooth. Not sure which standard of bluetooth was being used, they advertise the unit being very bluetooth friendly and being able to use the latest and greatest versions. All I can say is it works and sounds great, hard to say if there was a degradation in the sound over bluetooth we never did an A/B comparison. It is finicky the first time you connect though and had me frustrated at first until I figured out the trick. I needed to delete all the bluetooth history on my phone and start from scratch. The moment I took off the other bluetooth items I had connected to previously the pairing happen immediately. I have since paired with other devices and gone back and could still pair with the TEAC but that first time your phone / tablet seems to need to be blank of other pairings. The antenna seems pretty powerful and has decent range.

USB:
Once the drivers are loaded off their website the USB connection worked flawlessly. I was able to use their APP to play music off my hard drives and I was also able to use Foobar 2000. The TEAC APP is not one you will want to use so it is good you can configure other programs to manage your music. All the USB listening was done at my desk, in my office going from my PC to the rear of the DAC connecting into the USB port. I did not use any fancy USB cable and was listening through some self powered speakers, JBL 3 series mini monitors at a nearfield listening position. Sounded great but this was far from a high end set up.

NETWORK:
I tried in great frustration to connect to the unit through the Network connection down in my music room with no success. It wasn't until I dropped a dedicated line directly down to the music room from my office where the router sits that it worked. The TEAC program is far from fully developed or maybe I just did not download all the correct programs nor set it up correctly, but I am not using it and took it off my tablet and will be taking it off my PC. What worked incredibly well was ROON. Once the cat 6a line was dropped from my office to the music room it was as simple as plugging in the cat cables to the router and to the back of the DAC. Next step was to load ROON onto my PC and then onto my tablet. Once ROON was loaded on my PC it immediately saw the TEAC. This leads me to believe that ROON has certified TEAC as a ROON ready DAC. This connection happened immediately and it caught me off guard. I went down to the music room to see if the system was on and it wasn't the cat line was just plugged into the asleep TEAC DAC and ROOM saw it along with my NAS drive that I had just set up. I told ROON to only look at the NAS which only has music files and it ignored the many hard drives I have attached to my PC. I then went downstairs to the music room and began to stream music off my NAS. It sounded better than I ever imagined it would. I almost think that some of the FLAC files sounded better than the actual CDs they were ripped from. Not sure why this would be but it sounded that way. One day I am going to A/B this to see if it is true or not. In the end I am really happy with the Network connection. It is a very clean connection and sounds amazing. It is a shame that TEAC's program is so poorly written and that I need to subscribe to ROON. ROON however is a really nice music server program. I never thought I would like their "music" channel but find I keep defaulting to it after the album I picked to listen to ends. This "music" channel just streams files you own on your drive and typically keeps them in the same family from what the last song you picked to listen to. I assume if you subscribe to a music streaming service like Tidal or Pandora then ROON would include files from there also. ROON in not superhuman and your compilation album files do need to be properly tagged for it to work its best.

Front USB (thumb drive):
This runs off of the "NET" setting. I have yet to figure out how to see the files and play music from it. I have not tried inserting a thumb drive with both MP3 and FLAC files but cannot figure out how to see or use them. Maybe now that ROON is on my system I could access them through ROON. Something to try.

Headphone:
I have not tried the headphone connection but I am told it is fantastic. I do not use headphones so I will take other people's word for it being great.

Volume Control:
I used the TEAC volume control just a couple of times when the unit was set up on my desk playing through the JBLs. Worked great, what more can I say. I use a preamplifier down in the music room however if you wanted to go without a preamplifier and use the TEAC's volume control I think this would work very well. It had a very nice smooth feel when turning the volume up or down and it did not create any noise.

Rear Outputs (RCA/XLR):
There is one pair of XLR outputs and one pair of RCA outputs. I am running the XLR outs to my preamplifier. Plenty of room around both the RCA and XLR outs.

Coaxial Input (75 ohm):
The coax digital connection is located with plenty of space around it. There is a nice tight fit but not too tight that you feel as though you are going to pull the plug out of the back of the unit when disengaging the cable.

Optical:
Haven't tried it yet and probably will never but it is there.

USB (rear):
TEAC makes a big deal about some special quiet circuits or something. I am not familiar with the USB set up with DACs however have read that they can bring noise to the music and TEAC has a special circuit that is suppose to make this extremely quiet and on the high end scale. I am not sure I totally understand what they are talking about, but based on the quality and how well the unit functions I will give them the benefit of the doubt and say it works as good or maybe even better than any other quality DAC.

External Clock:
The TEAC has a separate accessory clock that you can purchase and plug into the rear. This overrides the internal clock and is suppose to be a lot more accurate. This external DAC even has an oven which first heats up the clock to operating temperature before it starts working. It is a pretty serious clock and I believe more intended for professional use. It also has multiple connections to be able to run with multiple DACs. If this is interesting to you I suggest you read up on this, because it is way over my head. I have read one review in which the reviewer state that he heard a slight improvement in inner detail on some high resolution files that are playing complex pieces of music and that he could not really hear much improvement when listening to typical rock music through a Redbook CD. It is not an inexpensive piece of equipment, about $1,500.00, so I will probably never get a chance to hear if it does indeed make an improvement or not. I am very happy with the internal clock the TEAC comes with. The TEAC has two power supplies two DACs and each channel uses its own pair along with a long laundry list of high end tweaks that all come standard with the NT-505, and many are upgrades from the previous NT-503 DAC. From my experience and as I mentioned in a previous post, I do believe I hear an improvement in sound with this DAC. The 503 seemed a little warmer, less neutral than this DAC. There are other differences I heard also but will not relist them again.

The unit is small, half size but built like a tank and has some real weight to it. I bought the silver finished unit, but it is available in black also. TEAC makes an entire line of high end mini components that all match and stack. I have listened to them at my dealer and they sound fantastic, and you cannot believe the sound coming from such a small compact set of separates. If you need a "mini" set up this line is definitely worth a look; amp, preamp, cd player, dac, clock. Below is a link to what I am talking about in case anyone is interested.

TEAC | Products - Mini Audio Systems

I have a pretty high end CD player which works well. I am now using the TEAC DAC, it does sound noticeably better in many areas. Resolution, sound stage and bass all have improved. When friends have come by for a listening session after I added the DAC to my system they all had noticed pretty much the same improvements as I did, so it is not just wishful thinking on my part. The TEAC is very sensitive to changes in your equipment and even your interconnects. I have changes a number of cables going in and out of the TEAC and each time easily heard a difference. The biggest was when I went from a silver cable to a copper cable. For this reason I would suggest if you are going to be using the USB port then purchase an audiophile cable that will work well with your system and not just a run of the mill cheap-o.

I never thought I would become a streaming convert and thought of the DAC as more an upgrade to my Redbook enjoyment, but now that I have my NAS connected I haven't put a CD into the player in days. I realize it is a new toy and I am experimenting and trying to figure out all that ROON does and am sure once I am totally comfortable with the program and the newness wears off I will go back and forth between streaming from my NAS and my CD collection, however once all my CDs are ripped to FLAC I may rely totally on the TEAC. Time will tell since I only have half of my CD collection ripped at this point.

MQA:
With over 3,000 albums on my NAS drive to choose from I am not going to subscribe to any music streaming services at this time. It has been so much fun to listen to what ROON picks for me to listen to. I constantly am surprised as to what I already have on file and had forgotten about. I am reaffirming what good taste I have in music so my impressions of how streaming off the internet and how MQA files sound is not happening any time soon. The TEAC does do a total unfold of the MQA file once you upgrade the firmware, which I have done. The upgrade is straight forward you just need to be connected to your PC. TEAC's instruction for upgrading the firmware and drivers is well written and easy to follow. The software that they are providing for Windows PCs and Android Tablets is lacking.

That about sums it up. I really cannot say anymore on the subject, however if you have a question send me a message and I will answer you that way. Based on the price of the DAC and all of its features I give the unit 4.5 stars out of 5.0 for a few reasons. The first is that their program is useless and I still haven't figured out how to use the front USB Network connection with a thumb drive yet, but am sure once I figure it out it will work fine. The last reason is I have not heard enough other DACs in this price range in my system to say that this one is the best for the money but my gut tells me it is a sleeper and is indeed one of the best for the money and will compete head to head with ones costing close to twice its cost.

 

Thanks for the very informative and detailed review. I believe the 505 has preamp capabilities. Any thoughts on using it as a preamp?

 

Preamp - yes it is a preamp indeed. The only time I used the unit as a preamp was when I had the unit hooked into my PC and it worked very nicely. I do not recall if it has a volume control on the remote which would make it even more attractive as a preamp. In my main system which is where it resides full time I use my current preamp and have turned the active volume control off so I cannot say how good the amplifier portion is. As a headphone amplifier I am lead to believe it is excellent but no personal experience. One day just for the heck of it I will try both but for now my focus is on it's streaming ability and cleaning up my file library so Roon organizes all my files as completely as possible. I have a bunch of duplicates and old downloaded compilation albums with no tags, very annoying.

 

I have to say that the support from the company TEAC is at a disgusting no level.
It simply ignores all requests even from official dealers in Europe.
Pay everyone who has a TEAC NT505 the Poor quality function firmware TEAC TEAC HR NT505 via STREAMER.This option is the only way to update the network render 505 firmware.I've been using 505 since the beginning of summer.Installed the first network firmware without support MQA.Update to the new firmware there is no possibility that the program TEAC HR STREAMER just does not want to do it!!!Gave a request through an official dealer in Germany 2 months ago.To there are still no fixes and no response from the main ofia TEAC.

 

I agree that TEAC support is non existent, however I found a number on one of their sites for tech support from Onkyo. Onkyo is their distributor and support in the USA and they were very easy to reach but unfortunately not that familiar with the product. Hopefully this will change. I did follow their instructions for the MQA firmware upgrade and it worked. It was not complicated and they require a certain cable to perform the upgrade. No mention of having to use their streamers, just run the downloaded firmware upgrade program using the correct cable.

 

The 505 itself, through the USB cable, was normally flashed onto a new 1.10 firmware.
The USB cable has nothing to do with the tape drive firmware. Because the tape drive 505 is flashed through the Internet and the Teac hr Streamer program needs to be flashed with the new NETWORK firmware Ver10.3c. But it is not installed.
What firmware do you have showing Teac hr Streamer?505

 

To update the Internet firmware cable naturally some special is not needed because it is updated through the program Teac hr streamer.Answer program Teac hr streamer what number Internet firmware shows.

 

Firmware 1.10 is what reads after downloading and running the update. TEAC in their instructions to update firmware mentions a specific type of cable to use and to make sure it's not a charging cable I believe. Concerning the streamers and players I downloaded what was on their site and ran them. They didn't work anywhere as nicely as Foobar or Roon which is what I settled on using, Roon. From what I learned at the Room site, The NT-505 is not yet Room certified but will still manage your music files and play them using the Network connection of a NAS drive, which is how I have mine configured at the moment. I have not streamed any MQA files so I don't know how this works yet.

 

Especially for you instructions where to see the number of Internet firmware and how to install it.
1.Install the Teac HR streamer management program.(Android, IOS)
2.Choose 505 from the menu.3.In properties 505 the firmware number is written.
4.The update firmware button is enabled. The number of the newest Internet firmware NETWORK firmware Ver10.3c.If you have firmware another means MQA You have not plays.

NT-505 | ダウンロード | TEAC (日本)
Translated from Japanese
"System firmware V1. 10 / Network firmware Ver10. 3c.

Playback of MQA content has been supported on the network.
※Network firmware can be downloaded and updated via the control app"TEAC HR Streamer".



How to update the network firmware：
Connect the control app"TEAC HR Streamer" to your console.
Since information about the update is displayed on the application screen, please follow the instructions to update.

If you don't see any information about the update, check the following:

Tap the Settings button (settings) to display the setup menu.
Tap the connected"NT-505"in the Music Player.
Tap Options.
Since there is an item called"Check the latest firmware"in the option menu, please set it to"yes".

*To update the network firmware, it is necessary to connect your system to a network connected to the internet."