David Hill of Crane Song LTD builds some genius pro audio equipment. His mic pre amps and compressor designs have always held a special place in my sonic memory. I’ve been lucky enough to use his gear in broadcast studios and through my own personal music recordings.
The Crane Song Avocet is a Class A monitor controller with a built-in DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter). Having undergone 5 iterations, the current Quantum DAC boasts impressive jitter specs and uses a proprietary reconstruction filter for accurate time domain response. Operating asynchronously with a 32 bit architecture, the reference clock is less than 1pS and all digital inputs are up-sampled to 211Khz.
Upgrade Note: If you are sending in your Avocet for the Quantum DAC upgrade, you will receive an optical input that replaces the original dual wire AES input. Cool, now you have AES, S/PDIF, and Optical.
The design is utilitarian and solid- sporting a modern industrial build with primary colored buttons and center volume knob. This might sound strange, but it always reminded me of Jacque Tati and his modernist take in films like Playtime (go to 23 sec). Monsieur Hulot would surely get lost in the maze of colored square buttons ;). The Avocet proves smart modern design can improve the future for all…err, yeah that is… for Audio Engineers!
Talking with David Hill at AES last year revealed his excitement about this new Quantum DAC design. In particular, David felt that the combination of filters being analog and some digital help provide a more realistic impact of sound. His words, if I remember correctly were, “a snare hit now sounds more like the real snare.” Now that I had Mr. Hill’s new Quantum DAC in hand, it was time to test it out.
To listen, I brought the upgraded Avocet down to a studio with Lipinski speakers and amps. There, we also had a previous generation Avocet to listen to and compare. A good hour of warm up was given, and a couple more listening to various digital audio sources from the SADiE DAW. Quantum entanglement aside, we began listening to this latest generation DAC design from Crane Song.
Using some familiar music tracks, we fed the Quantum DAC via AES/EBU, then out to the Lipinski speaker system with amps. It certainly sounded good right off the bat, but only after spending a little time did all the new sonic upgrades become clear. Switching to the previous generation Avocet DAC proved that this new design provided a more robust or dimensional envelopment to sounds. David was right about the snare sound. Even more, the guttural impact of kick drum was solid and more 3D. Instruments achieved a more realistic timbre and acoustic space with this Quantum DAC upgrade. While the previous generation DAC is no slouch, this new design allows a more fleshed out roundness to the instruments in the stereo image. 
The user-interface offers simple and functional controls that allow you to smartly and intuitively work. With the precise relay based volume control (with offsets for level matching) and brilliant class A output stage, the 5th generation Quantum DAC furthers audio resolution while maintaining full control of your audio sources. The Crane Song Avocet maintains its place as the hidden gem of my audio experiences. My highest recommendation.
-Happy Listening!
hifiqc 