 It's a €300 DAG using the ES9038 chip and LO thinks it will more than satisfy both critical listeners and those that listen with measurement equipment. That's a nice challenge. LO became known for their DAGs, Toslink and USB interface boards for the Raspberry Pi. Last year they introduced the ready to use Streamer Annex Network Bridge, the US Bridge Signature Player and now they come with the ready to use DAG, the Revolution DAG. Where in the past was a DIY product, both the USB Bridge Signature Player and the Revolution DAG are ready to use and form a nice pair. I have reviewed the US Bridge Signature before, this time we look at the Revolution DAG. So let's see how you can use that. The Revolution DAG is to be connected over RCA cables to a line input on your amplifier. Line inputs are all inputs on an amp safe phono. Speakers are connected to the amp of course. As a source you can connect your computer directly to the Revolution DAG using a USB to micro USB cable. A 25 cm cable came in the box. If you don't want a computer in the listening room, you can use a network bridge or Streamer like the LO US Bridge Signature I mentioned before. That is connected to the Revolution DAG over the USB A to micro USB cable that comes with the DAG. On the other side it is connected over your network router to the computer elsewhere in your home. Depending on the player's software you are going to use, a tablet or smartphone usually will be the remote control. See the review of the US Bridge Signature or for instance the SOtMS 200 network bridge for more information. The Revolution DAG comes in a very compact housing, measuring only 125 x 138 x 47 mm while waiting only 470 grams. On the front we see an infrared sensor, a multi-function display and a tiny joystick for menu control. On the rear the 5V DC power input, a ground terminal, the micro USB input and the left and right analog output sonar CA. That's all. When we look inside we see a number of components being shielded off, which is great but makes it a bit hard to see what components are used. What I did find was the ESS ES9038 Q2M DAC chip with, left of it, the analog output stages that uses the TI-551 op-hams. And there must be an XMOS USB chip, probably hidden under the shield directly behind the USB input. But there is another thing that caught my attention. There are supercapacitors all over the place, like here two one third farad ones, here one farad ones and here a stack of four, the lower two being one farad and the ones inside are half farad types. Supercapacitors are devices in between batteries and capacitors. They do not have the same capacity as batteries but clearly higher capacitance than a capacitor. The important benefit is that they are able to deliver current almost instantly, which is important especially in devices where both analog and digital circuits are present, like in a DAC. In total eight farad supercaps are used, resulting in very stable power lines for both the analog and digital circuits. If you want to use it with a Windows computer, you might order it with the XMOS ID firmware, so you can use it without installing drivers on the computer. If you use any other computer, mobile device, stream or a network bridge, order it with the TICECON ID firmware. You can still use it with Windows computers but then need to install a driver. All other devices don't need a driver. Another ordering option is the flex cable for use with a USB-Signature. Any USB-A to micro USB cable will do but the flexible print cable is a better choice. Furthermore a $7 remote control can be added to the order. If you have clumsy hands like I do, order that remote. It is more convenient than the tiny joystick on the front. Normal use is very elementary. Just connect the DAC to a computer streamer or network bridge over USB. Connect the analog outputs to your amp and hook up the power supply, that's all. The power supply is not included so you can select your own depending on your budget and tasteful perfection. ELO offers a cheap switch mode power supply, the nivana audio file switch mode power supply and the Shanti linear power supply. Alternatively you can use any 5-fold DC power supply like products from iFi, sBooster, Uptone and so on. Money spent on a power supply is almost always immediately audible but be careful with digital only devices like network bridges and network switches. In those cases often a quality switch mode power supply is the better choice in my experience. I use the ELO Shanti to power the revolution DAC and the sBooster BOTW PMP first generation for the ELO US bridge signature. I said there's no need to set anything if you don't want to but ELO wants to please both people with ears and people with measurement equipment. Unfortunately the best measurements don't always give the best sound quality so ELO offers the user all kinds of settings for optimization for either measurement or listening. Let's start with the sync async setting. Normally the ES9038 DAC chip uses a so called digital phase lock loop which is a circuit that chases the incoming digital data by slightly varying its clock frequency. This is a normal practice for almost all DACs and is called async mode by ESS. But varying the clock frequency is causing jitter and since the only input is asynchronous USB data there is no need for this. The audio data is stored in a buffer that is read by a clock. If this clock is very precise and not only clocks the buffer read out but also the master clock input of the DAC chip, jitter will be very low. This can only be achieved if separate clocks are used for 44.1 and 48 kHz based sampling frequencies, like in the revolution DAC. This mode is called sync and should theoretically sound the best. But I like the async mode better. Perhaps this is because ELO has set the async mode to its lowest setting. Apparently there still is some jitter in sync mode and async mode solves this. Depending on the source you use there might be a setting to be adjusted to avoid clicks in between tracks, the pop mute setting. You can vary it from no mute between songs to 100ms mutes in steps of 20ms. Leave it to zero if you hear no pops or clicks in between the tracks, especially tracks of different sampling frequencies. If you do hear clicks or pops, increase the setting step by step until it doesn't occur anymore. H2 and H3 harmonic control is a remarkable setting that lets you choose for more or less second and third harmonic distortion. It is also an option on the ESS DAC chip and used by manufacturers to voice the DAC to their own taste. ELO has made this option also available to the user. Second harmonics make the sound warmer while third harmonics makes the sound sharper or brighter. Another setting on the ESS DAC chip is to switch on and off oversampling. I wonder if this is done for commercial reasons since non-oversampling DACs are hot within certain circles. The ESS DAC is a Sigma Delta DAC so in the end it will be converted to a high sampling rate anyway. But it is very democratic that ELO offers you the option to choose for non-oversampling if you like. More important might be the selection of filters that can be chosen. These filters change the character of the DAC clearly and there is no best choice. Most of these offer just another approximation of the truth and the one that you like might be not the one that I like. Again these are options on the DAC chip that ELO gives you access to. Every DAC has to have a so called reconstruction filter set at half the sampling frequency. This transforms the staircase waveform into a smooth waveform it was originally. But the filtering, especially with the steepness needed here, can't be undone without introducing some distortion, mostly in the form of disturbance in time. There are many ways to construct filters and not a single one can please all people. So ESS has included eight different filters in the ESS 9038. Often the manufacturer of a DA converter that uses this chip chooses one filter as well other manufacturers that you select your filter of choice, like ELO does with this DAC. There are eight different filters to choose from. Linear phase fast roll off, linear phase slow roll off, minimum phase fast roll off, minimum phase slow roll off, appetizing fast roll off type 1, appetizing fast roll off type 2, hybrid fast roll off and brick wall filter. Behind the names you see the impulse response. I am not going to describe each and every filter and just tell you that I generally like the appetizing fast roll off filter type 2 best and dislike the brick wall filter the most. Don't expect giant differences depending on the quality of your stereo, it will vary from just noticeable to good refinements. There is so much to tweak on this DAC that to you it might seem impossible to give a good sound quality judgement. But that's not the case. The main quality of a DAC has to do with good circuit design and circuit board design, quality components and proper power supply. The ES9038 DAC chip is such a good component but I have heard DAX using this chip that sounded a lot worse for the same money or more even and I have heard ones that were more refined for more money. The staging is impressive for this class as is the focusing. The sound character is partly up to you since there is so much to tweak. Combined with the USB signature I ended using filter setting 6, async, second harmonic set to 2 and click pop to 1. This gave me a sound character I liked and find in the Mitre Brooklyn bridge with syntax power supply. Of course the revolution DAC isn't as refined as this combo but it offers good musicality, relaxed listening, deep lows and good sibilance control, which in this price category is quite remarkable. This DAC belongs in my setup too, somewhere in the middle and that's an achievement for this kind of money. The revolution DAC is ideal for the audiophile on a reasonable low budget that loves to experiment with sound options. It takes considerable time to compare all combinations of settings but for those that love this there is no better choice. As said you can alternatively use the default settings if you're not into tweaking for they offer a very good sound. For those that listen by measurement gear, eat your heart out. Find the best settings for your measurements and enjoy that fact even more than a good sound. So the revolution DAC is a friend to all? Well, you do need a power supply with it and a decent one is bulky. So you have two boxes. If you then use it with the L.O.U.S. bridge signature, as I did, you need another power supply so you end up with four boxes and a lot of wiring in between. But there is also an advantage for someone on a real-time budget. For you can start up with just the revolution DAC with cheap power supply connected directly to your computer for slightly over €300. Then save for the other components over time, each step improving the sound quality. You'll end up with a stream and network bridge with DAC costing around €1000 and sounding like a more expensive setup. Which brings me to the end of this video. I love to see you back next Friday at 5pm central european time in a new video. If you don't want to miss that, subscribe to this channel or follow me on the social media so you will be informed on new videos around. If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up. Many thanks to those viewers that support this channel financially. It keeps me independent and thus trustworthy. If you like to support my work too, the links are in the comments below this video on YouTube. I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com. And whatever you do, enjoy the music.