Review: DACS Clarity Headmaster

As your production career progresses so will your audio hardware needs. I have been using multiple pairs of studio monitors for a while and the minute I got two pairs, was the minute in all honesty that something like the DACS Headmaster would have been perfect, it's only after having the chance to review this essential piece of audio gear that we realized this was what had been missing from our setup for quite some time both in terms of functionality and clarity of sound.

Overview

The DACS Clarity Headmaster is a headphone amplifier (based off the DACS Headlite), a monitor source selector and a D-A converter made by Crookwood which can convert Analogue to Digital and back again regardless of the sample rate (44.1 to 192kHz) and will automatically change this setting depending on the sample rate of the audio it is receiving.

As with most of the DACS gear, the Headmaster is a colourful unit and comes in a glorious blue colour and is a mere 1U rack space, meaning that this can be used in pretty much any setup anywhere - both studios and portable setups. Blue LED indicator lights show which monitor source is in use and two big red knobs control the volume for both the master and headpone output with an aluminium Speaker Select button in the middle to switch between your monitor sources. Four aluminium buttons exist on the right hand side of the DACS Headmaster unit that allow you to select the input source that you want the DACS Headmaster to play back.

The back of the unit has two analogue inputs (unbalanced RCA and balanced XLR), two digital inputs (AES/EBU and S/PDIF). There is also two gain controlled monitor outputs (TRS) and one fixed level monitor output (XLR).

On Test and In Use

I used the headmaster on various full band sessions across various genres and I also utilized it on a Sample Pack we are putting together. The Sample Pack proved an excellent test for the headphone amplifier as a lot of the work we were doing was guitar based using a click and when using the studio monitors we recieved a lot of click bleed through the pickups, so in this case the Headmaster's headphone amplifier was used. The sample pack was also a better test than a regular band session too in terms of clarity of sound and this is where the Headmaster came into it's own.

The D-A Converter on the Headmaster was excellent and unlike the default D-A that came with our Tascam FW1884 desk it played all the sample rates perfectly which was specifically great when messing around with ad editing video as the 48KHz (default video sample rate) would sound slowed down using the FW1884 which made it very hard to work with especially on things like music videos. With the DACS Headmaster there was none of this and the sound played perfectly, coping excellently with the changing sample rates. I even threw a couple of 96kHz sounds at it and again it worked and sounded great, with the FW1884 96kHz always sounds sped up.

The Lowdown

The sound output both through the headphones and the monitors was top notch and I could hear a noticeable difference when the Headmaster was being used. This extra clarity really helped me to get some of the best mixes I ever have and I would highly recommend the Headmaster for anyone looking to improve the clarity of their work. I would imagine this would be better suited for more established producers that already sound great in what they do to offer that extra little edge of clarity and professionalism to their work.

The DACS Headmaster is as good an investment as top quality Pre-amps would be for the high end producer and is almost equally as important. What's the point of having amazing PRE's if the monitor outputs aren't showing the full clarity of the sound? The DACS Headmaster is an essential piece of gear and from what I have experienced thus far in my career is the best sounding piece of equipment of its type that I have had the pleasure of using.

Sadly I waved goodbye to the Headmaster today and it will be interesting to see how this affects my future works. I will miss you DACS Headmaster! Now I need to save my pennies to get my own when I open my New York studio this year.