MHDT Orchid or Lampizator Amber 3?

@grannyring how true, how true!

I was not overly impressed by Lampizator dacs until the Golden Atlantic came along. Your assessment about their prior dacs is consistent with my memory although I never had one for any material length of time.

Was your Tubadour stock or did it have the upgraded caps, etc.? To be fair, try to remember the sound of your Orchid stock, before you modded it and upgraded it so considerably. The stock Orchid (prior to you infusing it with your magic touch) is not at the same level as the upgraded Tubadour. I cant comment on a stock Tubadour as I’ve never heard one. The Amber 3 granny, you really should hear it. Its quite an accomplishment given its price.

I hope your cable business is still thriving. I enjoy your Schroeder Method interconnects (I use them between a recorder and an integrated). Best to all.

The Amber is very interesting. I know they offer a trial at full price.....may try one 😊. I preferred the stock Orchid with an upgraded fuse and good power cord to the Aqua LaVoce S2. The upgrades I performed on the Orchid really do bring it to another level for reasonable cost really.

My comments on the AM dac are based on a friend trying one and comparing to an MHDT and LaVoce. It was an AM with upgrades that cost $1880. We have the same taste and he felt the AM dac was good, but not as full bodied as the others. We both desire a full bodied sound that stays clear of leanness and hyper detail. The AM dac was not far enough along the full bodied spectrum. He ended up with a LaVoce S3 which he says is better than the S2.

"My unit plays up to 24/192..."

Maybe yours is modified but the stock Orchid has a 16bit chip DAC. It does accept 24/192 but only outputs 16/44.1.  As for the comparison with the LampizatOr, I have the older Amber not 3 and have compared it with the Orchid in my system. I thought they both sound very good but the Amber had a little more balanced sound, especially after I switched to better/NOS tubes. That said, if I were to buy either new, given the price difference I'd go for the Orchid unless the new Amber is significantly better than the older version I have. I doubt if its twice better than the Orchid. As mentioned before, I think Pagoda is a better option and worth the additional cost especially if your content is more from streaming than Redbook CD.  

If I had been the VP of Marketing for Lampizator, I wouldn’t have named the new dac the Amber 3 but they were also likely trying to keep their naming conventions more consistent than in the past.

The Amber 2 I heard in the past(not in my system) sounded fine and the Amber 3 is literally a completely different animal to my ears. The new digital engine will challenge what you thought was possible for under $5-6,000. I am a R2R fan and I simply can’t believe this sound is possible from a ds chip. Mind boggling. Once again, I would place the Amber 3 on par with the Aqua La Scala Optologic dac for almost one third the money. Keep in mind, I wasn’t trying to decide which one to purchase, I already owned both along with the TotalDac. The Amber 3 is on par with the Aqua and it wasn’t embarrassed by the TotalDac.

Listen, everyone should buy and enjoy what they can afford and what they like. With that said, I don’t want what I’m trying to convey to come off as some comparative justification to feel good about purchasing one product over another. I still have many of the aforementioned dacs, I’m just trying to tell you what I am hearing in my home with these dacs. I’m happy with each purchase...they are all fine dacs but the Amber 3 is, in my opinion, a disruptive kind of product. It so blurs the the cost-benefit ratio that the law of diminishing returns shifts materially.

Choose to listen to one or don’t but make no mistake, the Amber 3 is not an upgraded Amber 2 to my ears. The Amber 3 in time may be considered an entry into the top tier of dacs rather than just an entry into the Lampizator line. If the Amber 3, the Aqua Optologic and my Totaldac were in my system at the same time, to my ears, you could remove any two of them and I would not get fussy. Its that good. YMMV.

ghasley, it's good to know that Amber 3 is that much better. Another nice thing about these DACs is that aside from tube rolling one could also upgrade passive components like capacitors to make them sound even better. I'll just need to wait until one comes up for sale in the used market.