Several months ago,
based
in part on Terry Londons' recommendation, I purchased the MHDT
Orchid
dac with the WE tube upgrade. To give a system context,
speakers are
Audio Note AN/J LX, preamp is the STP SE/Stage 2, amp is a
First Watt
SIT 3. I use an Oppo BDP105 as a kind of server, with an
external
hard drive connected to it. I have purchased interconnects,
special
jumper cables, and a usb cable from Grannyring (Bill Dion). I
have
found his products to be exceptional value, and my experience
in
dealing Bill and communicating with him has been absolutely
the best
experience I have had in my over forty years of being into
this
hobby. So when I had the chance to have him modify my Orchid,
I
jumped at it. He replaced key resistors with Vishay Zfoils and
Audio
Note Tantalum non magnetics, and certain caps were replaced
with Vcap
Odams, and Vcap CuTFs. I just received the dac from Bill
yesterday. I believe it already had over 50 hours of burn in
time,
and I have been running it since receiving it as I am aware
that
these caps and resistors take some time to fully break in. But
in
listening today, I am a very happy camper. The sound stage has
expanded, the noise floor reduced (eerily so), bass is deeper
and
better defined......it feels like one is that much closer to
the
musicians, the singers, the music, the emotions evoked. So
much of what makes for better
sound appears to be a kind of getting rid of what gets in the
way. I
can only assume that is at least in part what these upgraded
components have done. There are two descriptors that kept
coming to
mind in trying to describe what I have been hearing with these
upgrades: 'refined' and 'natural'. I have not heard the
Lampizator Amber 3 so I cannot comment on a comparison.
