Non Analytical Sounding DAC Upgrade- Budget $1,500 or less

I’ve been a Musical Paradise pimp for years and on a whim picked up a Denafrips Ares 2 to try out the whole R2R thing. Holy cow I did not expect the curtains to fall and the music was front and Center compared to the AKM4499 and fully tricked out  MP-D2 MK3. The Ares 2 was like a breath of fresh air and I found myself listening to all my favourites again and even worse, I restarted my Tidal subscription again since Digital finally was keeping up with my vinyl rig! I have since upgraded to the Pontus 2 and it’s a big improvement over the Ares 2 in musicality and the bass is so much better and you can actually feel the room where the music was recorded. I know you’ve already made a purchase but I thought I’d chime in and share my experience. 

I was using a Jotunheim multibit and liked it. I replaced it with a Gunguir Multibit to see if I could hear some difference. Damn, I cannot believe how good the Gumby is. It needs a few days of run in before it sounds right. But after settling in  it makes recordings I never paid attention three dimensional and startling beautiful. The sound of this thing is just mesmerizing. 

I use Gumby in a system with a Pass Xa25, Jotunheim line source, Kef LS 50's, REL T-5 sub,  Qobuz files from a Mac, and an assortment of Anticable power cords, interconnects, and speaker wires. This DAC truly is the best source I have ever owned. Give Gumby an audition but let it run for a few days and make sure you have good interconnects and power cords with it.  I can't believe how good this thing is.  

Thanks everyone for the ideas and suggestions. I thought it would be good to update everyone on what I decided to do.

After lots of DAC research and considering where I want to take my system over the next year I went in a slightly different direction. Instead of spending my entire budget on a DAC, I split it up and will use part of it to explore the benefits of adding tube preamp and/or power amp. So, instead of a $1,500 DAC I purchased the Schiit Modi Multibit for $250 and will use the rest to add a tube preamp to the system.

I've had the Modi for a couple weeks now and am very impressed with it. There is a bigger soundstage (deeper and wider) and detail retrieval is better than the Beresford. It's a good match to my turntable and I'm looking forward to seeing what a quality tube preamp adds. Right now I'm leaning toward the Mapletree Line 2CRM preamp and will use my NAD as the power amp. If anyone has experience with a Mapletree/NAD combo I'd be interested to hear about it. I posted a thread over on Amplifier forum if anyone wants to chime in.

Thanks again!

I'm wondering if the Covid restriction on international shipping has had any effect on deliveries from companies like Audio Mirror, MHDT Labs, et al.
What was your wait time?

Re Deer Creek's post above that the dac in the MiniDSP is competitive with many mentioned here, can you comment on how user friendly the MiniDSP is to use for a non computer type.  I want to try Dirac on problematic room, and streamer to replace my cpu would be nice. But i took a look at the manual and was a bit overwhelmed....

Sorry for hijacking this thread, but as a owner of the Orchid I would really like all owners of the Orchid to join my fb group https://www.facebook.com/groups/orchiddac/.
The purpose of the group is to collect any information that can improve the SQ of the Orchid.If you have suggestion for a great tube, new capacitor, power cable. come join,

I also have the MHDT Orchid. It's a very musical dac. and cheap (:

I've been running an MHDT Orchid for about six months now.  My only modification is that I'm using a 6DJ8 in place of the 5670/We296 family. I have a western electric,  a teal and a GE 5 star and the Amperex 6DJ8 is better. It does require an adapter for the socket. 

I love the sound of this dac. I listen to it for hours and hours. 

My MHDT Orchid was recently modded by Grannyring (Bill) and all I can say is wow. The sound is cleaner and clearer without sounding glaring. The soundstage is larger and more holographic. Right now I’m listening to Jessica Williams Live at Yoshi’s and she’s right in front of me playing her piano.

I previously owned the PS Audio Direct Stream, Metrum Onyx and the T&A Dac 8 and there is no comparison. The modded Orchid is more natural and 3D sounding and costs less than $2k with the upgrades. Highly recommended!

I just purchased a Denafrips Ares 2 and am very impressed. I Love the sound, not harsh or "digital" at all, beautiful soundstage, detail, instruments and voices are just awesome,  and I can (and do) listen for hours.  At the same time I upgraded my digital and analog interconnects to BlueJeans cables, I believe that also made a nice and big difference. My previous DAC's were the ones in my Bluesound node 2 and a DacMagic 100, so yea I have nothing major to compare it to DAC wise. I still listen to vinyl and find this DAC sounds similar to vinyl, and at times even better. The lead time is very short now, and highly suggest you consider this DAC, probably exceptional value of the money.

My System:
Oracle Alexandria MKII with Ortolan MC 30 Super cartridge
Parasound Zphono (Using BlueJeans interconnects - however I am waiting for my Stager Pure Silver Solids with KLEI silver connectors to arrive for comparison)
Bluesound node 2 for streaming (All CD resolution files on hard drive, a few higher resolution and then mostly Tidal for streaming)
Denafrips Ares 2
Quad 44 Pre AMP ( with upgraded OP amps)
Quad 405 amp (with major dual PSU upgrade and some OP Amps)
B&W CM6 S2 bookshelf speakes via KimberKable TC8 speaker cables.

First, buy a used DAC on Audiogon. That alone will turn your $1500 budget into $2500 to $3000. Second, look for a highly regarded and positively reviewed piece that is one generation old. Prices fall a bit when an upgraded model comes out. But if the last generation was awesome, it didn’t get less awesome. I bought my DAC used for $1300, I believe. It’s a Bryson BDA-1 D/A converter. It was $3,000 new. Bryston has since launched BDA-2 and then BDA-3; the latter is about $3500 new. I love the DAC. It does everything the reviews said it would. Good luck!

You can get a  Topping D30 at apos audio for $120, Toppings new E30 for $10 more.

Thanks Ralph

I have a Chord Qutest with a Teddy Pardo linear power supply.
The improvement is truly stunning and Ive described it elsewhere.

OF COURSE Chord wants us to believe that their cheap wall wart is optimized for the Qutest...ha!! They dont want the Qutest to steal business from the Hugo, TT or Dave!

Paid $1200 inc shipping for a used Qutest and paid $350 for a new Teddy Pardo LPS

Unless I need to drive an amp directly one day, I cant see changing this DAC anytime soon.

Sure:ko.kpee.8yqoko

But he doesn't seem to have any for sale right now.

@atmasphere  I was just checking out the D-30 on eBay and the prices seem to vary a lot by seller.  Do you mind mentioning which seller you used? Thanks

Streaming and CDs.

@atmasphere 
Interesting. How were you using the D-30, streaming, CD's, Hi-res?

The SHD competes with the best DACs plus it has:

Dirac Live® Digital Room Correction
Processor: 32-bit floating-point 450 MHz Analog Devices SHARC DSP
DAC Chipset AKM AK4490EQ

Dirac Live plus the AK4490EQ DAC will be like removing coke bottle lenses from your eyes.

miniDSP SHD is my choise

I have been through so many DACs and as good as some were, I was always aware that something was missing. Some DACs I've tried, North star, Musical Paradise, Aeris, Calyx,  EAR Dac4 (exceptional but expensive) Plus many others
But when it came down the the one that ruled all others it was :-
Dum roll roll please  ............ Tubadour III SE ... Music Music Music 

BTW, I agree with the previous Mojo comment; definitely the best DAC under $500.

Just for fun I picked up a Topping D-30 as it was getting some nice comments online. It was about $120.00 on ebay.


I've seen it beat out a variety of much more expensive units! Smoother, more 3D and not bright. Quite a surprise! The last DAC it beat had a retail of over $4000.00...


It supports S/PDIF (AES1), TOSLINK and USB; up to 192KHz and 24bits.

The Schitt is great bang for the buck. I also like the Hegel DAs. The HD12 can be found on the used market for under $1000 and offer a lot.

Regarding the stock Chord Electronics Qutest power supply. It may work well with the Qutest but injects an enormous amount of noise into your AC electrical system. I didn't detect an improvement in sound when I replaced it with an ifi iPower linear supply but all the electrical noise disappeared, my phono stages were dead quiet again.

My choice for under $1.5k DACs would be the Black Ice Audio Glass FX DSD tube DAC, $799 new.

to respond to akgwhiz, replacing the 1541A chip is not difficult....just need to gently pry out existing chip(you can buy a special tool on Amazon for this) and carefully put in the replacement making sure that all the pins are aligned properly before pushing down. Also replacing the caps is quite easy....just requires a bit a soldering skills. Mu unit(used) came with a WE 5670 installed and it proved to be extremely dull making music sound lifeless. I also tried several GE 5670's and thought they were a bit too glarey. Finally settled  on a RCA 5670 'Command' which provided the right balance for my system. Tube rolling makes a definite difference....but I can't say how much difference compared to the slight mods referenced above. Also some of the improvements made could be attributed to the Audiolab 6000 Transport that feeds the Orchid but I can't evaluate this addition as I have nothing to compare it with. And finally I had been using a Marantz 8001 which was a highly regarded unit in its day butI'm getting so much more enjoyment with the Orchid.

Just buy a $299 musical fidelity v dac 90. You would save tons of money and still get a great sounding dac. I don't feel like I'm missing anything. I think it's a freaking bargain if there ever was one. Sterephile seems to agree and gave it class A component status! 

+1 on the Border Patrol DAC....

Most of my serious listening has been/is vinyl; but, my modest CD collection is made much more enjoyable now because of the BP DAC. I may actually explore digital further because of the this DAC.

While I own the Orchid, I have to admit to be very curious about Chord, not least because of the talk given by Rob Watts in this 2017 video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXyjsSYjnL8
His knowledge and experience shine through and I learned a lot. 

That said, I do wonder about R2R Soekris DACs. It strikes me as one of those sleeping giants, still mostly under the radar and not part of the "buzz," but perhaps one of the best values out there. I've yet to hear one. I don't know if it would sound analytical or not.

The newest Musical Paradise unit is a giant killer.  I have it with some NOS tubes and the Crystek clocks.  Fabulous lush sound and it has user changeable caps and will accept 12 and 6 volt signal tubes.

Chord Qutest. I own and enjoy it. Detailed, not at all analytical, does hires and DSD, has filters that you can use to tailor the sound to match the rest of your gear. Also has 1v, 2v or 3v output selections. Highly recommended. 
If you don’t need DSD and MQA and only listen to redbook and stream up to 192, a used Bryston BDA-2 is an excellent choice as well. 

Hey Ruleof72,

Tom_hankins is onto something here. I drove up to Newhall (CA) before the shutdown to A/B some dacs in the Schiit showroom (the Schiitr!) and wow did that make it easy. I listened to Gungnir multibit and Yggdrasil thru speakers and many sets of cans. Both were so round and musical but Yggy kicked Gumby’s a-- with its clearly bigger stage.

But I still could not make myself write the check for $2600 plus. So Eddie showed me the Yggdrasil GS (garage sale!) for $1549, a bargain and every bit as good, I think. It’s got the 1.0 boards refurbed w/current firmware into a new chassis, using gen5 USB (not Unison but so what).

Lots of you here have a newer/pricier rig than me, but on mine, Qobuz thru the Node 2i (bypassing the inboard dac) now sounds pretty close to vinyl. And cds (thru an Audiolab 6000 transport) sound way-y better than ever. Of course, my rig is a vintage Carver stack with old school Kef 104/2’s, but now it gets a workout every day. Good luck!

I can also recommend the Chord Qutest. I had it in my system briefly as a loaner and was mightily impressed. A friend of mine  who has had or heard a multitude of DACS hhas said that the Qutest is the best he's heard under $5000.00.

@ruleof72 ,  I've been using the Musical Paradise MP-D2 (Mk2) for about 2 years now. I was consiering the Doge 7 unit mentioned earlier when I happened on the MP-D2 on Audiocircle.

The biggest advantage to the MP-D2, is variability and flexibility in components. 3 DAC chips to choose from, 12v and 6v tube options and a myriad of easily swappable cap options. You don't have to keep changing dacs to achieve a certain sound, you can do it with tube swaps and DAC chips if you like. Much less expensive over the long haul.

The AKM chip options would get you closer to the sound you're after than the Sabre chip offered. Output and rectifier tubes have the largest impact on sound. Honestly, the stock rectifier and driver tubes are adequate but there's definitely room for improvement.

If you're still considering it, be sure to check out the large thread on the audiocircle discless forum. 
  

@letch Sorry to miss that! I appreciate you directing me to it. As Emily Litella said (all you oldies know where I'm going): "never mind."

@hilde45 
This thread already exists:

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/mhdt-orchid-tube-rolling

My amplifier is out for repair (Sonic Frontiers Power 2se) and I've been told that I can expect 10-14 weeks for turnaround. Ugh. What will be interesting it that I'm going to be placing my transport/DAC into my friend's "revealing" system since his is vinyl only. This will an opportunity to get my unit burned in and also to tube roll in this system. The sad part is that I won't get to listen to it at home. I am considering getting a cheap amp to do duty while I await repair. 

I would generally agree with djones51 above... I have always felt the best place to add warmth or color, if its wanted or needed, is in the PreAmp stage... And PreAmp tubes seem to last much longer then tubes in a Power Amp... Horses for courses and we all have different ears/brains...  In my case its a Chord Qutest DAC -> PremaLuna Tubed PreAmp -> McIntosh SS Power Amp -> MartinLogan ESL speakers...

@ruleof72

You said " I’m definitely open to other suggestions." so I’m going out on a limb here with another suggestion. I am not disparaging anyone’s choice on a DAC this is addressed to the OP. You mention non analytical DAC then describe your system having a NAD integrated. The NAD is fairly analytical which to me means it reproduces what is fed to it as accurately as possible. If you decide to keep a fairly precise SS amp then the products mentioned so far would probably meet your expectations. On the other hand if you move to a tube system the idea of adding a tube DAC or other tube sounding DAC just adds more coloration to the tube amps. In my opinion in order to get the "flavor" of your tube preamps or amps it makes more sense to go with as neutral a DAC as possible. The more precise the DAC at conveying the signal without adding or taking away in other words analytical would give you a much better idea at what the tubes offer in your tube components. So far I have seen 1 DAC mentioned the Benchmark and it is a pretty neutral DAC. There are others that would qualify as neutral pretty much any modern Delta Sigma DAC.

@letch I'd be interested to hear about your experiments. Perhaps start a thread called "Tube-rolling with the MHDT Orchid DAC"? It's a popular enough product that we might find some interesting contributions which detail how different tubes and associated equipment combine to create different sonic outcomes. 
One person relayed the following to me:
Brighter: GE 5670 5-star (stock tube); a good tube.
Softer: Tesla 6cc42; great midpoint tube.
Extra soft: Western Electric 2C51

I just pulled the trigger on an Orchid this week. I've also got a CEC TL5 coming to pair with it. I bought it with the upgraded Tung Sol  since you get the standard tube as well. 

@hilde45 I think analytical is negative depending on how one views such things. I think your understanding is spot on. 

I was listening to a friend's system (Conrad Johnson, Totem, Rega) and it was good, but too analytical. My friend called it revealing and admitted that there was music he loved that he couldn't listen to on it. I shoot for what I call musical, which means the system is there to play music not "recordings." He loves his system, I admired it, but could never live like that. But he completely understood and that was his preference and I respect that.

Now I have to figure out where I can get me one of those Western Electric tubes everyone is going on about. 

Thanks, @ianrodger. I didn't know "analytical" was a negative — I thought it meant toward the more crisp, clean, maybe lighter side of the spectrum — which was a set of characteristics some people like. Now I realize it's a cluster of negative qualities (in your definition). The OP said "overly analytical" but I suspect that you mean that — not all analytical is bad, but too much is…well, too much!

@ken7, I second the question by akgwhiz about the Orchid. I'm interested in playing around with it, too.

@ken7, of the Orchid mods, do you know which may have yielded the greatest bang for buck, or ease of installation?  Did you try other tubes first, can you comment on their sound?  I have this unit and love it but who doesn't love to tweak something for the right price/reward ratio.

@hilde45   Analytical to me means bright, shrill, harsh, sometimes lacking in fullness. Out of tonal balance if you like.

It's what the sound was like when using a Rega DAC in my system. Of course, it depended on the source, some songs being not so harsh as others.
I realised I wasn't enjoying my listening sessions so much anymore. It had got to the stage where I couldn't stand listening to some music so avoided it even though they were some of my favourite artists. This is not a good place to be in.

When I changed the Rega out for a Denafrips Ares, all of that harshness vanished. The bass had some real tuneful heft to it and the treble was much more natural sounding without sounding as though it was artificially rounded off. It sounded......fuller.
Previously really bad sounding tracks were now much more pleasant to listen to.

When I upgraded to the Denafrips Pontus DAC I was even happier and remain so.

If the Denafrips family colours the music, as mentioned above in one reply, it does so in a wonderful way.
Ian

So glad to read of all these great DAC options! I'm struggling to understand what "analytical" means to different people. For those mentioning units they like, I'd be curious about what they sound like and why you think they satisfy the poster's question for a non-analytical sound.

The Sparkler Audio S504 DAC has a great analogue sound. Had it over a year and highly recommend it. Also just got the RME ADI-2 for my other system and that sounds great so far as well. 

So many great recommendations. I have heard the Chord, Benchmark, Black Ice, and MHDT Pagoda. All of them are great.

Here’s another you may want to look at: https://doge.audio/product/doge-7-tube-dac/

I bought mine for $1400 a year or so ago, but the trade war has bumped up the price a bit.

I love the unit. I think it rivals many DACs costing thousands.

I’d recommend contacting Wyred 4 Sound. They have some new old stock options available that don’t show on their website. I picked up a DAC2DSD-SE that was within your budget. 

I have mhdt pagoda ! The sound was so natural ! I have compare it with my vinyl , they are sound very similar! I can listening for all day without fatigue!

I have an RME ADI-2 DAC FS. It sounds great. has a million ways you can adjust the sound. $1,150.00.

I am 95% vinyl and have budget digital in my main rig but I would suspect, since I have not heard it, the Audio Mirror DAC is very good. I would have given it a try but it was out of my digital budget. My view is based on reading user reviews of the AM dac, and working with Vlad when he built my SET 45W mono blocks. He was easy to work with and support was great. Plus the amps just sound great in my system. Very pure, natural, spacious, non-fatiguing music of any sort.