musician aquarius r2r dac any good?

I have the Musician Aquarius and it has a beautiful smooth sweet sound. I don’t have experience with other dacs to compare it to. I bought it based on the recommendation of Sandu Vitalie of Soundnews. Later Sandu Vitalie’s top recommendation was the Terminator Plus, although his Cons list is interesting:

• Not the most detailed sounding unit in its stock form
• Not the fastest sounding unit in its stock form
• If you want to squeeze the absolute best out of it, Denafrips GAIA is a must-have upgrade

Three things irritating in the daily usage of the Aquarius:

1- It has no remote.

2- The led lights are the size of pinheads making them impractically small to see in daylight.

3- The last issue is probably specific to my streamer. I have an ifi streamer connected to the dac through USB. When I power up my system Tidal detects the ifi streamer, but when I press play there is no sound. I have to restart the Aquarius, press play again then I get sound. This happens every time.

I bought the Aquarius new because I was in a hurry and didn’t want the Pontus. If I could do this all over again, I would go for a used Terminator Plus or a used Aqua La Scala MKII Optologic even though I would pay about 2k more. It is worth it the dac is the heart of the system.

@tjag I have no issue with your problem 1 & 2. But #3 does worry me though. I do not know how the DAC will interact with my transport (window 10 machine).

My question is: why do you pick the terminator over the Aquarius if the terminator will be the slower DAC?

I have to say, problem #3 is probably specific to certain equipment. Why not work with iFi and Musician to see if there is a fix? Plus, if I’m hearing you right, the solution is simply turn the Aquarius off and on and then it works. Is that really so hard? While the Terminator Plus May be a bit better (soundnews.net rated the Terminator a 94 and the Aquarius  93) it’s a MUCH more expensive unit, and even more so if you need to add the Gaia. While I’d love to have a Terminator Plus too, for the price difference I think I could live with turning the Aquarius off and on, and that’s IF this is an issue with other equipment at all and IF that issue can’t be fixed with firmware update, etc.). Just some thoughts/perspective FWIW.

@soix

While I’d love to have a Terminator Plus too, for the price difference I think I could live with turning the Aquarius off and on, and that’s IF this is an issue with other equipment at all. Just some thoughts/perspective FWIW

100% Agreed.

@viethluu

With regard to issue three, I think it is system specific in my case. You can perhaps check with other people here who have the Aquarius.

My question is: why do you pick the terminator over the Aquarius if the terminator will be the slower DAC?

I don’t think Sandu meant that the T+ is slower than Aquarius, rather slower than other hi-end dacs. The T+ is in a different class than the Aquarius. I would choose the T+ as an upgrade because it is in the price range I could afford (willing to pay) buying used.

My impressions are based on Sandus´ reviews. If he is wrong with regard to the T+ then perhaps someone could correct him. However, you have a point, Sandu should have mentioned the dacs that were better than the T+.

"I’ve already covered quite a few R-2R ladder DACs by now, some of them were magnificent sounding like Denafrips Venus, Audio-GD R7 and Musician Aquarius. All of them had their pluses and minuses, but I feel that today’s unit terminates them all, climbing an aluminum throne as the best sounding DAC I had the pleasure of testing at my place."

"The amount of information that comes forward is staggering and as much as I liked the Musician Aquarius and that yummy sounding Rockna Wavelight, Terminator Plus goes a little higher, delivering a clearer, a punchier and a faster overall performance."

"Terminator Plus reigns supreme in here, closely followed by a Rockna Wavelight, Musician Aquarius, Audio-GD R7 and Denafrips Venus."