MHDT Orchid or Lampizator Amber 3?

@facten The La Scala Optologic is a terrific dac. It has a very nice and sincere presentation. Its not too "showy" meaning the mids are the right scale and color, not over or under emphasized. The low end is nice and full without being plump. Just the right amount of overhang and decay. The high end is exceptional and frankly, I believe the high end bests the TotalDac Tube dac. Its a terrific dac.

The Amber 3 has a more pronounced low end and the mids, while not as pronounced as the Lampizators of yesteryear, is a bit more present than the Aqua. The high end is too close to call but the Amber 3 seems more layered and 3 dimensional to me than the Aqua.  Where the Amber just has me shaking my head wondering how did they do it at this price point is in the area of tempo or jump factor. It just seems to have a little more PRAT or life to the music. Hey, it might all be due to something very minor like output voltage or something along those lines. The Amber 3 just feels a bit more dynamic I guess is how I would describe it. Not artificially so (like the Chord Dave to me). 

Mine is a single ended unit so I didn't compare it against the balanced outputs of the Aqua. The Nagra and the TotalDac are a more "comprehensive" presentation but the gap between the Amber 3 and the aforementioned is closer than it has any right to be. Factor in the cost differential and I am left grateful that digital technology has matured so elegantly. I say this alot on Audiogon but aren't we all so very lucky to be enjoying a hobby where the small manufacturers have innovated things to such a degree? Peace to all.

@ghasley

Do you know if the new engine in the Amber 3 is what is also in the Atlantic TRP upgrade? I own an Atlantic Plus and have wondered if the TRP upgrade is worth it.

@ghasley Thanks so much for the detailed comparisons... Super useful and really nice to read someone who doesn't feel compelled to defend themselves. Every component sounds different in different systems. Would love to try an Amber 3 now that you've described it... 

@ghasley , great info. Any way you can compare the Amber 3 to the Cambridge audio 851N or Primaluna 100 DACs?

Sounds like you have too many DACs, so I'll help you out and take the Amber 3 off your hands (at a steep discount of course..LOL)

@t_ramey I believe the engine is the same, however, that is a question better posed to the Lampizator folks. I have heard the TRP is supposed to be exceptional but I have not heard one. Many say that it approaches the GG but I will leave that to the experts with experience with the TRP. The guys at Lampizator NA will tell you I purchased the Amber 3 to reside in my 3rd system, it was a default/impulse buy based on my wonderful experience with my Golden Atlantic. It was intended to be for background listening in my office but alas...its too good for that.

I have left my Border Patrol in my 3rd system, the Amber 3 is in my second system and I will leave my main system out of the discussion for now. One cool use that I discovered about the Border Patrol DAC SE is that I use it in a system that I use to digitally record using a Tascam digital recorder. Originally used to capture my vinyl, I accidentally discovered that if your Border Patrol DAC SE is the usb only model that the rca-spdif output from the Border Patrol is a very high quality output. So much so that if someone was inclined to want to capture a digital data stream from a streaming service like Qobuz or Tidal or Roon and wanted to drop it onto a flash memory card or hard drive it really works well. One of my cars has a flash memory port so its really easy to make "mix tapes" for those times where I feel like listening to certain specific artists in the car without utilizing my phone or eating up bandwidth while traveling. DISCLAIMER: I would not support in any way anyone who offloads the streams onto media as a way of not having to purchase the music.