MHDT Orchid or Lampizator Amber 3?


I’m considering one of these. Please share your thoughts, especially if you’ve heard them. I will be streaming 70% and CD’s 30%

Jazz, R&B and classical in that order are my listening habits.

My room is 20x30 and very nice acoustics.

Current system:
Dali Epicon 8, Luxman 509X, PS Audio NuWave DSD, Cambridge CXC, Shunyata interconnects & Nordost speaker cable

Thank you!!!

jzzmusician
@teajay


Thanks for the reply. I’m not exactly sure why people get angry or snarky, you merely report your observations and we all can either choose to benefit from your findings or not. Its just audio folks. Our own observations may differ or align but isn’t that what’s fun?

Regarding break in, I was always a skeptic but have become a little more open minded about it. Cables, especially if they happen to have inline networks, do take a bit of time. Tube gear, does take a bit of time. Tube gear with tube rectification or tubes in the power supplies seem to take longer still. I dont quite understand why and I used to be mildly dismissive until I experienced my first truly painful break in experience with an Audio Research Ref 5se preamp. I made the assumption it had to do with 4 tubes in the pre and 2 tubes in the power supply.

The most painful break in period though was with the Amber 3. I’m going to guess it was to do with the tube rectification, I don’t know. If someone asked me I would honestly have to say to expect the Amber 3 to come into its own after 400 hours and it still evolves after 500. I know this because I first experienced the Amber 3 in my system by placing a well broken in demo unit into rotation. I then received my brand new unit and it flat out sounded broken. No joke, broken. Today it doesn’t but thats after a long (500+ hours) breakin, a NOS 12au7 tube and setting it to low gain.

It isn’t my lead dac in my main system but it does occupy a place in my office system, anchored by a Leben cs600x. The Amber 3 is a fine dac, the Tubadour is a fine dac, the Orchid is a fine dac as was the Border Patrol. For this system, for what I was after, I sold all of these except the Amber 3. Once again, I wasnt test driving these, I owned them. The cost of entry didnt enter into my decision because (gratefully) this isn’t my rent money. Its entertainment.

BUT...BUT...if anyone reading this believes that any one of the aforementioned dacs is right and the others sound broken, dont believe them. They are each terrific and each suitable for the long term enjoyment of the purchaser. Dont for a minute though believe these are end game giant killer pieces. They are not going to put Aqua or Totaldac or Lampizator or MSB out of business. They are, however, so good that the law of diminishing returns requires a sanity check for each of us. It used to be that dacs up to a certain pricepoint were unlistenable, now, we are lucky that that is no longer the case.


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Yes my Amber is still changing for the better at over 300 hours. Another thing we need to consider is the input we are using.  I know the Amber 3’s USB input is one of its strong suits and possibly the best input to use depending on your server/transport.  Will the coax sound as good? Maybe, or maybe not.  My system is maxed out and tweaked out for superb USB sound. 

Also, DSD recordings do sound better with the Amber 3 and the other two units can’t go there.  No doubt DSD sounds better than the same recording non-DSD in my system.  The Amber 3 lets me hear those sonic benefits while the others don’t.  I have a lot of DSD recordings. 

Finally, I use a no gain preamp that benefits from the added drive of the Amber over the other two dacs.   This is where system synergy really influences my system and preferences. 

The Orchid can be taken  to new sonic heights with rightly chosen parts in key positions. One needs to know those exact resistor positions and exact values.  The output caps must be Vcap Odam 2.2uf and Vcap CuTF .01 uf bypass.  The combo is magic in the Orchid. All fun!