First impressions of new MH-DA006, Musetec flagship


I have received the 006 almost a week ago and have been breaking it in. The price at Shenzhenaudio is $3,900.00 USD, $600 more than the 005. The ad copy states:

"DA006 is a new generation of flagship DAC developed by Musetec over three years and launched in 2024. During this period, it has undergone more than ten revisions and adjustments.

Compared to the previous DA005, the listening experience of DA006 has been improved in all aspects. DA006 has clearer and richer details, a stronger sense of texture, a more stable sound base, better detail control, a wider soundstage, fuller and more powerful, smoother and more natural. . ."

Some brief listening during break in has been very very positive. I will report back when it has run at least 300 hours.

dbb

@dbb Very good choice to keep! I guess I couldn't understand your choice vs keeping 005 since I hear the 006 as more forgiving and natural. Sorry to learn of your hearing loss, not unusual to lose the ability to hear highs, I can only hear up to 16khz in a very quiet environment. In a noisier environment this more severely impacted. I won't go much into this, but we often don't realize how much the background or ambient noise levels of our listening rooms impacts our ability to hear certain frequencies, these ambient noise levels may completely mask certain frequencies in general, and actually change the mix to some degree on our recordings. I choose to exclusively listen at night when ambient noise levels at naturally lower due to the outside world slowing down. I even tried Schumann resonators, won't go into that.

 

Again, it may well be the particular presentation of the 006 doesn't suit you, after hearing the Harmony in my system I can understand the appeal of that presentation. In thinking about this I recall my audio show attending days, I'd often go into rooms where there were relatively low resolving systems but musical and inviting. Many would congregate to these rooms, I was always seeking the highest resolving rooms, yes, some could be irritating, but once in a while I heard high resolution along with those inviting qualities in the lower resolving rooms. And this was some years ago, so digital not nearly the quality of today, You can take a dac like the Harmony, enough resolving ability to be involving, yet be entirely musical. I suspect a Harmony magically placed in any of those rooms may have been best of show for me, that's how far digital has come. Point is 006 simply not needed anymore for many, this for the resolution seekers, and you must already have a highly resolving system in place to hear it's full potential. Without that simply wasting your money, although I consider 006 to be amazing value at $3900! I'd also reiterate 006 should sound nice in virtually any system, relatively natural timbre and neutral tonal balance should ensure that.

If you use the 006 as a DAC only with a separate preamp how do set the volume to fixed? I read the manual I couldnt seem to find it.

@darcman I just turned the volume up all the way to 0.0db. I don't think there is a fixed setting. 

Thanks, OK so that is volume to max. I just looked again in the manual, ya I dont see any fixed volume setting. All I see is the volume range of 0 db to -127.5 db

I dont own the 006, just looks like a very nice build and certainly a DAC to consider for anyones short list.

Oh I just thought of another question. Not sure what most will use as an input. I have an Innuos Phoenix USB decrapifier reclocker, I wonder if these type of devices have a positive effect on sound quality or do they have a minimal effect if any