DACs — Audel U-Dac

The U-Dac is a small desktop digital-to-analogue converter made by Audel, a small Italian manufacturer established in 2008 and run by its owner, the engineer and architect Walter Carzan. The company is based in Casteldaccia near Palermo in Sicily and is mainly known for loudspeakers. Audel keeps a compact, complete model catalogue that it states will remain stable for years to come, and its distribution outside Italy is limited. The U-Dac forms the source of a desktop system together with the U-Amp power amplifier and the Nika Trend speakers.

Key specs that matter

At the heart of the unit sits an ESS ES9038Q2M converter chip. PCM is accepted at up to 32 bit and 384 kHz, and DSD is supported up to DSD256. The USB interface is an Amanero Combo384 board, and USB is the only digital input, so the converter is designed for playback from a computer rather than from a disc transport or a television.

Engineering and use context

Audel's catalogue policy favours a stable, long-lived design over replacing products every time a new converter chip appears, and the U-Dac follows that approach with a well-established ESS chip and a widely used USB receiver. In the Audel desktop system the converter feeds the U-Amp over an analogue RCA connection. The U-Amp has a single line input and no source selection, which is why the system relies on one digital source, the computer, connected to the U-Dac over USB.

Pairing

The U-Dac can be combined with Audel's own amplifiers, including the U-Amp power amplifier and the Audamp integrated amplifier, so that source and amplification come from one designer. With the U-Amp and the Nika Trend speakers, whose small full-range drivers are intended for near-field use, it completes a desk system with a laptop or desktop computer as the only source. The converter can also be connected to the RCA line input of any other amplifier.