DAC Choices - $5,000 to $7,000

Actually Ben does not change his dacs nearly as much as most of the industry. The good news is his Evo is easily upgraded and modular in terms of upgrading to any future improvements Ben may offer. This is a big departure from his past builds.

I upgraded my Mojo Mystique with the Lundhal chokes and the improvement was just wonderful. I strongly suggest this upgrade in terms of the overall sonic impact of Ben’s various upgrade options.

The sound of the Mojo dac is a distinct departure from the pretty much ubiquitous electronic dac sound I hear in so many high end dacs. The Mojo sounds like music. Pure and simple. No part of the sound spectrum is exaggerated or out of place no matter how loud your music plays. In fact, this dac is so effortless and right sounding that the music swells and expands when the volume is turned up and one never gets the sense that it is “loud”. It has a solidity of sound that is built from the bottom up if you will. Just so full, solid, substantial and meaty. The tone is absolutely beautiful. Anyway, I love his design and dac.

@mitch2  - agree with everything you say about the importance of power sections - and Ben does a great job there.   The EVO weights 29 pounds!  Definitely trial the EVO if you can.  

PM me if you live in Florida - maybe we can connect.  I'm bringing my EVO to another Agon member's home in Palm Beach this weekend so he can give it a listen.  He runs an Antipodes DX like you.  

Hello,
You need to demo all of this. You are talking about thousands of dollars. You may love or dislike R2R DAC like Denifrips or the same of a chip based DAC. First figure out weather you prefer Honda (R2R) or Toyota (Chip based).Next go as high price as you can go. From what I’ve read on these forums price typically follows tech or power. Denifrips doubles power and tech (R2R) count as you go up. Make sure it has the amount and style of connections you want to go with your gear. Can it decipher your preferences. Does it do DSD or MQA? Is this it for a long time or are you going to get a better DAC next year. If you can wait and save up more money does it put you at the next level of DAC. Just like that Honda or Toyota you lose money as soon as you buy it new. Finally , a tried and true test of a piece of equipment. How many are for sale used. If no body appears to want to let this unit go it might be incredible. If there are a lot for sale then there is probably a reason why. Most people want to keep there Toyota Tacoma or they sell them used for top dollar.

A good audio friend of mine had the new Sonnet Digital Audio Morpheus and well as the latest Denafrips Terminator with DSP board in his home. He also owned the Mojo Mystique 3. He felt both dacs were rather electronic sounding compared to the Mojo. After living with the Mojo in his system for a year he simply could not enjoy music nearly as much with the other two dacs. He just purchased the new Evo.

He was very disappointed with the Terminator saying the upper mids and highs were too forced and not natural sounding like the Mojo. Hyper detail was there with the Terminator, but not his cup of tea. This is most likely more a comment on how good the Mojo is as opposed to how disappointing the Terminator was to him.

@mitch2 The buying experience went well.  I used paypal.  Vincent sent me a link to pay.  Took about 3 weeks to get?  Around that, pretty quick all in all.  My Salk speakers took just under 6 months, so I was prepared to wait some.
Vincent has answered any questions I have had (not many) within one business day and I have not had any reason for support. 
I haven't even tried the USB output yet as I have a Singxer SU-1 KTE edition that I use with AES. But I did get the USB cable.  Someday I will try it.
I figure, like you mentioned, I can get this now, then upgrade later for the difference in model costs plus the $350 fee.  $6k ain't no chicken feed to me, so maybe in a few years when I get the itch again I can swing $3k to upgrade to a higher model and any software updates.