First impressions of new MH-DA006, Musetec flagship

I haven’t heard it, but someone on another forum mentioned that the Gustard X30 ran very warm, maybe even hot. Sounded like Gustard had to run the new ES9039 Pro DACs pretty hard to get the desired performance in this particular application. A bit of a red flag for me that doused any further interest.

Harmony already shipping, 006 still waiting. In the meantime Harmony vs. 005 will be interesting. Mostly I just want to compare timbre between an r2r and sabre dac, so many claims of how r2r is more 'natural' sounding than sabre chip dacs.

Another sabre chip dac not in my plans, T&A Dac200 would be next in line after 005,006, Harmony comparison. Burr Brown chips for PCM, 1bit for DSD, the 1 bit converter supposedly better.

@westborn 

The ES9039pro (and the Gustard uses 4) is designed to run at lower power consumption than previous generations of ESS DAC chips.  So overheating of the chip not likely.  Something else on the Gistard boards must be running hot and may as a result have a shortened life.  If it is indeed the DAC chips, that might mean an engineering problem at Gustard.  One shouldn't have to run any ESS chip "hard."  So one should not extrapolate from the Gustard to the Musetec.

We have not heard from dbb that the 006 runs hot.  The 005 certainly does not.  Early run 004s ran hot, but that was in the discrete analog section and corrected very quickly.

Interesting that the Gustards are moving well up in price approaching that of acknowledged really fine sounding DACs.

I used to have 2 Musetec 005’s but sold both because it was not great with my tube RAAL VM-1a headphone amp. I loved it on my 2-channel SS gear. This new 006 is something I want to hear.

If someone has a Schitt Yggi+ OG (now discontinued) or the warmer Less Is More DAC I would be interested on how it compares to the 006. The 2 Yggi’s are the 2 best DACs I had used on my gear. The OG being my top DAC, and the LIM sonically similar to the Musetec 005.

@sns

My personal take on a bottom line difference between the sound of the r2r approach, as implemented in the Holo May, and the Sabre dac chip, as implemented in the 005, was that neither was inherently superior. But my preference was the Sabre dac aproach which prioritizes resolution.

The Holo May sounded to me like it took a picture of reality and then added some embellishment as an artist might use charcoal to add depth to a sketch or adjust the light to make the scene softer or more appealing. The background blackness in the May was appealing but, to me, not particularly realistic. In contrast the 005 delivered, in my opinion ,something closer to true resolution based on how the music would most likely sound in real life. For instance you can often hear an ambient noise floor in a hall before the music even starts. That sound is truly natural and is my preference.

I think Sandu Vitalie of Soundnews agrees on the paramount importance of resolution. He calls it “Biggity Big deal” in his comparison of the Gustard with the Harmony.

He said this in his comparison of the Gustard X30 to the Harmony DAC on his web page review: I can’t differentiate it [Gustard X30] from my $18.000 Wavedream Signature or $14.000 Chord DAVE in terms of how much nuance there is. Is it as resolving, clean, and transparent? Yes! And this is a Biggity Big deal. In this regard, X30 pulls ahead and outperforms both the X26 PRO and the Harmony DAC and as much as I like the LAiV for its particular skill set, it’s in the last place when it comes to resolution.