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DAC - Aqua Formula or Aqua La Scala

Looking at upgrading my DAC. Running an Innuos MKIII (2TB) through the DAC in the Anthem STR Pre-Amp. My pre-amp is running to an Anthem STR Amplifier. Speakers are the Paradigm Persona 9h’s.

The DACs on my shortlist at the Aqua La Scala and Aqua Formula. Any user feedback on the Formula and/or La Scala is appreciated.
mi4
klh007
621 posts
 
You can't go wrong with either of the AQUA DACs, Formula is better (more neutral) LaScala very slightly burnished with tube rolling ability.
brrgrr
163 posts
 
Worth waiting for the ARC Genesis release before changing??
austinbob
235 posts
 
Talk to Tony at Ellington HiFi. He carries Innuos and Aqua and is that rare bird, an honest and no bullshit audio dealer!
astelmaszek
125 posts
 
@dgarretson I've grown to hate the hifi world precisely because of people like you. Anthem STR probably with properly setup room correction probably sounds better than 95% of the so called high end systems costing $100K I've heard before.

@mzkmxcv Tell that to good portion of studio engineers that use Genelacs. I assure you, whatever you feed to a Genelac speaker with it's ADC/DSP/DAC process sound exactly like what you feed it, corrected for the room.

I'm sitting here working late in my other office, listening to Yamaha A-S1100, fed by Chord Hugo2, connected to Aerial 5Ts and the system sounds better than many of the so called high end pieces. I guess you'd consider A-S1100 to be a budget piece too.
dgarretson
2,599 posts
 

@astelmaszek Funny, I can’t think of anyone I’ve met like me. If I did, I probably wouldn’t like him either.

The Aqua pieces are simply in a different class of performance and price than Anthem. Moreover, if you buy into the R2R construct (I do and have also compared the Formula closely to Denafrips Terminator and Audio gd) it’s a contradiction in terms to pass that through further A/D/A delta sigma conversions.

That said, these days performance at the entry level is higher than ever. I have a $1K Tascam DA-3000 whose DAC gets quite close to its big brother Esoteric K-01X, and $1k Pass ACA 1.6 Class A kit monoblocks, that within their 10wpc limitation, sound not unlike the XA-160.8.  

BTW, you have a nice well-balanced office system.

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