Eversolo DAC-Z10 Review

Design

• Remote handset, app and touch-screen control
• Aircraft-grade aluminium chassis

To butcher a well-known phase, good things come in slightly smaller packages than is the accepted norm. The Eversolo DAC-Z10 is a reasonably compact 88 x 310 x 365mm (HWD), but that gives plenty of room for a very thorough specification – as I will discuss in the features  section.

As far as design goes, though, this fairly small cabinet is built mostly from what the company proudly describes as aircraft-grade aluminium – it’s powder-coated with a mildly soft-touch finish, and the overall standard of construction is well up to what the asking price demands.

Yes, it’s a fairly anonymous black box until it’s powered up – but nevertheless the DAC-Z10 looks and feels the part.

And when it’s powered up you find there’s nothing anonymous about it. The front fascia is mostly occupied by an 8.8in IPS touch-screen – it’s bright and crisp, and there’s more than enough room available to display a lot of relevant information without it feeling crowded.

And even better than relevant information is the ability to display your choice of eight different virtual VU meters, or one of four different dynamic spectrum read-outs. Sometimes it’s the gratuitous touches that make all the difference where design is concerned.

It’s possible to completely control the Eversolo using the touch-screen and the turn/push control dial that sits alongside it – they’re both responsive and reliable in their actions. The company also supplies a remote control handset that’s a cut or two above the norm – it’s quite tactile and weighty, and it covers most of the major functions in similarly reliable fashion.

Features

• Three linear power supplies
• Two AKM AK4191 and two AKM AK4499 DAC chips
• Compatible with digital audio resolutions to 32-bit/768kHz and DSD512

Eversolo, it seems reasonable to say, has a bit of a bee in its bonnet about isolation. The DAC-Z10 is built on the company’s Fully Isolated Architecture platform, which keeps the digital and analogue sections isolated from each other – and it has let no further opportunity to keep componentry isolated pass, either.

There are three linear power supplies here – one takes care of the right channel, one deals with the left, and the third powers the system circuitry. All three are carefully isolated from each other.

Each of the stereo channels has a dedicated pair of AKM DAC chips – an AK4191 and an AK4499 – so left and right digital signals are kept entirely separate from each other, from input to conversion. The volume control circuitry uses an independent R2R ladder module for each channel – so signal integrity and phase alignment should be uncorrupted, no matter if the selected volume level is very low or very high.

Similarly thorough attention has been paid to the crucial business of clocking. Yet despite the Precision Core layout, which features a temperature-controlled crystal oscillator, phase-locked loop technology and FPGA clock reconstruction, Eversolo has also included an input for an external clock – with multiple impedance options.

This allows the DAC-Z10 to integrate into higher-end systems than would otherwise be the case – but even so, Precision Core ensures the DAC-Z10 is more than adequately specified where clocking (and thus the imaging and transient response of its sound) is concerned. 

Getting audio information on board can be done via eight physical digital inputs: an IIS socket that features eight switchable modes, and is capable of dealing with digital audio resolutions of up to 32-bit/768kHz PCM and DSD512, HDMI eARC, USB-B (with multi-core audio processor and support for 32-bit/768kHz PCM and DSD512 too), a fully isolated AES/EBU input, and two coaxial and two optical audio inputs (all four of which support 24-bit/192kHz PCM and DSD64).

There’s also wireless connectivity via Bluetooth 5.0 (with SBC and AAC codec compatibility) and a couple of analogue inputs (balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA) – this is also a preamplifier, remember?

Outputs, for use with powered speakers, a power amplifier or what-have-you, consist of balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA – and there’s also a single-ended 6.3mm headphone socket on the fascia. Naturally enough, the headphone amplification module is thoroughly isolated from the rest of the electrical activity on the board. Plug in a pair of headphones and the DAC-Z10 will automatically detect their impedance and adjust its gain appropriately.

Your best bet as far as control goes, though, is the comprehensive, stable, logical and dull-as-ditchwater Eversolo Control app. What it lacks in looks – and it lacks plenty – it more than makes up for in the swift, responsive and intuitive way it operates.

Performance

• Momentum and rhythmic positivity to spare
• Deeply impressive powers of detail retrieval
• Will not place all that nicely with inferior partners

On a pound-for-pound basis, I have yet to hear a digital-to-analogue converter that is more capable of extracting the finest, most transient detail from a recording and putting it into convincing context than the Eversolo DAC-Z10.

It’s staggeringly talented in this respect, and becomes no less impressive with familiarity. Every time I turn it on, I am struck by just how accomplished it is in this respect.

And in every other meaningful respect, the Eversolo gives an admirable account of itself. Its facility with high-level dynamics, those big shifts in volume and intensity that pepper a recording like The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place by Explosions in the Sky is almost as rousing as its ability with the details of minor, muted harmonic variations.

It drives tempos forwards with a kind of naturalistic fervour, and expresses rhythms with real confidence thanks to excellent shaping and control of the lowest frequencies. It creates a large and carefully organised soundstage, and is able to tie a recording together convincingly despite the fact it can separate and individualise a recording without apparent effort.

Its tonality is even and neutral – in fact, it seems perfectly willing for the sound of the music from source to dictate terms. And this remains true even if you muck around the edges of the sonic performance by investigating your DAC filter options.

Frequency response, too, is unspectacular inasmuch as it’s even and undemonstrative – even though the midrange projects well, even though the top of the frequency range has bite and substance in more-or-less equal measure, no area of the frequency range gets unfairly underplayed or unduly overstated.

At this point it’s important to note that the DAC-Z10 isn’t in the business of making its partners sound any better than they actually are. It’s capable enough to slot confidently into systems featuring components that cost quite a lot more than the £1939 Eversolo is asking – but it’s not about to flatter less expensive, less capable stuff that itself.

If you’re hoping your ordinary, affordable powered speakers will be magically transformed by the DAC-Z10, think again. If anything, it’s going to show them up for what they are – which is not as good as I am.

Should you buy it?