I second Don’s review of his Lampizator DAC with the Vu Jade Audio modifications!
it sounded completely transformed, having listened to a plethora of DACs this one is at the top of the list.
I highly recommend Vu Jade Audio, they work wonders!!
VU JÀDÉ AUDIO Lampizator Upgrades
I met Peter from VU JÀDÉ AUDIO a couple months ago at some meet and great at another dealer that had speakers that were the latest and greatest from XYZ brand. He told me what they did and I asked him since he was a manufacturer can you improve the sound of my Lampizator Baltic? He said sure no problem.
I came to his music room and was blown away by the sound that he was making going through a few different pairs of speakers and he had 2-3 rigs on to try different systems out they make.
Their Audio Engineer named Karl took my Lampizator Baltic 2 and said we can upgrade the capacitors and replace them.
I was amazed how he knew exactly what to do and they also recommended we replace a few resistors and put a metal cover over the transformers to protect from electromagnetic interference. We listened to the stock DAC on his massive rig with Sonus Faber grand towers the size of Range Rovers and it felt warm and fuzzy and pipe and slippers with rounded edges and a bloom in the midrange and less detailed than his own VU JÀDÉ AUDIO Dac that had much more resolution
I let Karl have a go…He ditched the Jenson copper foil crap caps with VCaps, replaced the analog output section’s mid-level Nichicon Caps with higher grade Audionote ones…Replaced a huge cap behind the power choke a huge purple Clarity cap…Then got rid of some industrial power filter caps sitting in the digital section with the highest-grade Nichicon caps they make. Then he recommended we get a higher quality power rectifier tube and I got one from Sophia Electric that was a 274B. Power supply Is everything in audio gear. The better & cleaner the power the better sounding it can become. Upgrading the caps is like putting racing slicks on a road car to get the power to the ground better and have more grip. This is the way!
A couple weeks later he completed the upgrades and we tried it again Sam and holy cow it had more detail, MORE balls, more bass, better more extended air and most important it didn’t run out of gas at higher volumes.
Oh my god it is as if I married a Mola Mola Tambaqui to an Ongaku tube preamp now and angels sing on my YG acoustics Carmel 2’s. It is liquid and detailed, better transient response, more base, better timing, more detail, more natural sounding instruments. Strings sound like you are in a live concert, midrange sounds like you have the singer in the room. Everything has this liquid like nuance and refinement that was not there like an iron fist in a velvet glove with drums and bass notes controlled to perfection. This is my endgame dac…nothing I did to my system yielded a larger improvement ever. You have to give Vu Jade audio a chance to pimp your stuff..Karl and Peter are genius. If you have the means try their Dac as well…it is so choice!!