Musetec (LKS) MH-DA005 DAC

Seems like US fresh air is much more expensive than Czech fresh air. At about $9k the Ayre QX-5 Twenty has about $4k worth of fresh air. This blatant profiteering is what will destroy the US audio industry. Disgusting.

Well, I actually owned the Okto Dac8 stereo, LKS005, LKS004, Auralic Vega and total diy Frankenstein Perpetual Technologies setups all coincidentally or within short period of time from each other. All except the Okto large parts count, if parts count was measure of value it would seem getting full value with these. And then the Okto, mostly air, not getting good value? On the contrary, Okto was fine sounding unit, really not that far off 005 in my system at that point in time.

I also purchased that Okto based in part on measurements at ASR. Based on those measurements I expected relatively high resolving powers. But then, I also require subjective listening reviews prior to my purchases. All things being equal in subjective department,  I prefer good measuring equipment, symptom of good engineering in my book. I also need good internal photos, I want to see neat and tidy layout and quality parts, lots of times what I see is foundation for mods. In the case of 005, internal photos illustrated no need for any diy mods, they already did what I would do if I had good foundation to start with. In fact my purchase of 004 was meant to be diy Frankenstein mod package, one look at 005 and I knew I wouldn't have that hassle.

By the way, Okto is smaller operation than Musetec, really is one man operation and extremely high demand due to ASR and Stereophile reviews. They also have the Pro 8 channel model which further limits stereo version production. Last I knew they had stopped taking orders, excessive wait list. I will tell you the Okto is one fine dac, quite amazing at that price, and not Chinese which will be big selling point with some. I suspect part of taking off market may be due to running modifications, it uses 9028 Sabre chips, I'd imagine they may go to better chip or perhaps off in some other direction.

I also think its informative, in regard to reviewers credentials or expertise/validity to know their reference for sound quality, entire present system and comparative experience with other highly regarded components. For audio reproduction, everyone's reference should be really high end vinyl setup, this is where the epitome of natural timbre will be found, this the one area where digital has traditionally lagged far behind. With the really high end analog setups you'll also get the highest resolving powers, micro dynamics, sound staging, imaging, and most important, the ease and natural pace of real live music. Digital can easily do the resolving thing, the rest not as easily achieved. While it would be nice to own the absolute best analog setup, most of us will have to rely on audio memory, still if heard often enough and over many years, the memory sticks. Also nice to hear non-amplified natural instruments in great sounding venues for the live reference.

And now I return to measurements, lots of negativity regarding ASR at the moment. People should recall that earlier iterations of digital had very little in the way of meaurements or means to measure some very important technical aspects of digital. Take jitter for example, early digital very bad here, over time jitter became critical issue due to correlation of jitter measurements to sound quality, improved jitter performance the result, and much less of that old digititus sound today. I'd only say measurements are critical in the design of audio equipment, especially digital, for us end users, the subjective listening is most important.

As for new interesting contenders in high end/value dacs, the Musician Aquarius looks like a real R2R dac contender.

@sns very nice post. I would have gotten the Okto stereo last yr if they were in stock.

As for new interesting contenders in high end/value dacs, the Musician Aquarius looks like a real R2R dac contender.

The Musician Aquarius is another contender to Denafrips/Holo. Under the hood, it looks very similar to Denafrips and the R2R part might come from the same designer but oem’ed. I have heard some good feedback about this dac. Price in the same ballpark of 005.

@lordmeltdown  You're right on all accounts as usual.

The Czech Republic is a unitary parliamentary republic and developed country with an advanced, high-income social market economy. It is a welfare state with a European social model, universal health care and tuition-free university education. It ranks 12th in the UN inequality-adjusted human development and 24th in the World Bank Human Capital Index. It ranks as the 9th safest and most peaceful country and 31st in democratic governance. The Czech Republic is a member of NATO, the European Union, OECD, OSCE, and the Council of Europe.

You might want to be careful as you consider the Musician Aquarius DAC or any DAC from Musician, especially what you see and read about it. Apparently much of Musician’s output is sourced from Denafrips but may or may not be up to the Denafrips standard. You also might want to reevaluate the great reviews given as it is reliably reported that the company GIVES, rather than loans, DACs to reviewers.

More info here. The guys in this video are pretty reliable IMO: