Musetec (LKS) MH-DA005 DAC

@melm yes, I completely understand. I read through their website about it but honestly this type of architecture is nothing new - many many have implemented separating out the digital and analog completely over the years. Playback Design MPD8 has, if I am not mistaken, 6 independent psu powering different sections of the DAC. Designers have gone crazy.

I find 005’s implementation, whatever that is, very thorough with excellent and careful choice of parts (which can only be done by listening) without going overboard and for a second I don’t feel that I need to use other interface (like I2S) to make it sound better which for other DACs I felt it needed. The more I hear the 005, the more I am impressed. Its pretty clear that this DAC is tuned by ear (and I can now see why ASR’s measurements turned out to be horrible, needless to say it being misleading).

interim report on my experience with the 005 - i am not done with the overall dac comparisons but think i have a reasonable fix on the 005’s sound, strengths and weaknesses, and have one comparison completed

i have spent the last week comparing it to a bricasti m1se (w mdx upgrade and lan input card) which i also bought to try, they arrived the same week ... took me a while to sort through which filter i like on the m1 (min phase 0) and then i started comparing to the 005

005 strengths (quite manifold) - detailed, transparent yet full sound, excellent rhythm n pace, jet black background, very nice tone/timbre, quite refined with no detectable grain in the treble or midrange, outstanding sibilance control, solid bass foundation and a dose of midrange/midbass ’fattening’ which i think is quite desirable

005 weaknesses (few and relatively minor) - a) onboard volume attenuation does degrade the sound noticeably (say to -20 db or more, small decrements are quite ok i think), so it is best used at full output, b) the unit, while having nice treble energy and resolution, sounds a little closed in on top (lacks a sense of ’air’ or openess), which affects the quality of its imaging, particularly perceived soundstage depth

compared to the bricasti:

1) 005 full output volume is slightly higher than the m1 despite identical stated nominal voltage ratings, so i reduced 005 output -1 db to equilibrate - listened to both rca and xlr outs, sonic impressions are consistent - ran 005 using usb in, vs m1 via lan in (which is supposed to be its best input), then used usb in on m1 also, sonic impressions unchanged

2) two main areas where i preferred the bricasti - these are subtle but obvious and reproduceable on my system on different days so i trust them as solid findings

-- the 005 presents the music more upfront, with a wide but not deep soundstage... voices/lead instruments are at the speaker plane or slightly forward, and there is a more closed in, closer-in quality to the sound, whereas the m1 portrays more at the speaker plane or slightly behind, but the soundstage extends significantly behind from there, significantly greater depth of stage with specific instruments and voices more layered longitudinally

-- while tonally not different (comparable treble/mids/bass proportionality) the m1se has a greater sense of ease and fluidity and flow whereas the 005 has a slightly (emphasize slightly) more ’uptight’, robotic/digital nature vs the m1se having more of an ’analog’ or organic feel for the lack of an even better term, decay of notes and ’atmospherics’ are better on the m1 - i can only speculate why this is... perhaps because the bricasti does onboard upsampling like the chord stack and the 005 doesn’t into its ess converters... i dunno

-- these two points are noticeable in direct comparison -- but listened to on its own, i would not say that the 005 seems closed in or robotic in the least... such is the benefit (or curse) of hearing a better piece of equipment in direct comparison on an otherwise quite resolving rig

you can check out my system... i used the maggie 3.7i’s w fuse bypass and magna risers, driven by pass int150, also tried a well modded musical fidelity a308, then an oldie carver lightstar direct ref passive xlr linestage into a smc modded mccormack dna125 power amp - digital front end is roon run on an elberoth i7 core machine, uptone etherregen and aqvox switch, feeding sonore optical rendus as roon endpoints with usb out

in summary (for now) i would say that the 005 is a really excellent dac, in the $2500-3000 price tier really really good, (i did not have the dena venus in tow anymore, but by memory i feel the 005 is more refined more organic, the venus was brighter iirc) -- the 005 comes within a sniff of stuff that is much much more expensive - the sound is superb: warm, full bodied yet nicely detailed, great speed and slam, built like a tank, and outperformed by the high dollar stuff in quite slight and subtle ways - as mentioned earlier it is best used in fixed output mode, with slow filter - it sounded more organic to me than the fast one

Well the Bricasti is $10K, 11K with network card vs $3K for the 005. The Bricasti also has a built in preamp, how was that issue handled during the test? I don't believe it's possible to bypass the preamp or feed the 005 into the Bricasti preamp?

I guess the main strength of the Bricasti is that it's dual mono but bear in mind it would be very interesting to run two 005s in dual mono for $6K. I will try this with my dealer's unit.

@jjss49

Thank you for taking the time to do all of this comparative listening and then providing your impressions here. The big take away for me is how very close the sound quality is between these 2 DACS. It seems to me one has to resort to near nit picking and splitting hairs to find meaningful sonic differences between the two high-performing DACs.

Quite a compliment toward the 005 when one considers the Bricasti M1 SE is just over 3x the cost. And I know from personal listening experience how good the Bricasti is. Based on your comments the 005 acquitted itself exceedingly well in an overall top to bottom sense.

Your assessment certainly supports what other in this thread have favorably reported.

Charles

@jjss49  Very nice comparison and interpretations!

While I don't have the experience of your comparison, I pretty much agree with your evaluation of 005. I certainly hear the relative forward sound stage, and that has always stayed consistent over many changes. The greatest depth increase was when I upgraded Coincident Statement linestage to MKII status and Amtrans dual selector switches. This is only upgrade that provided more depth, and that not dramatic increase, although easily noticeable. Based on my experience I'd believe depth could be improved on. Still don't recall, depth being any less vs Auralic Vega, LKS 004, Okto Dac8 which were all in house simultaneously.

I've never sensed a closed in sound to 005, but then I've not heard your particular comparison. Compared to same dacs above never noticed this. I can understand how relative lack of depth could be perceived as sounding closed in, although I hear fine sense of height in my system, very close to lifelike size images, voices generally at about 4' 6" H, this probably helps to provide a less closed in sound, I also use diffusers centered behind speakers so not too finely image outlines. I've found a large speaker like my Klipschorns help greatly in providing more life size images, Maggies do same. I'm also quite sure horns and the particular mods I've done to my Klipschorns (Volti mid horns and tweeters on dedicated baffle) are providing maximum openness.

I too agree that small increments of volume attenuation MAY not do harm to sound quality due to bit stripping. I constantly use 005 as fine volume control due to my Coincident having dual non remote volume selectors, not getting up and down constantly from listening chair for fine volume changes. The thing is I can never be sure on this front, generally our perceptions of sound change as volume changes, louder sounds better up to a point. I can only say splitting fine hairs here.

So, that leaves the other liability you heard vs Briscati, namely the slight digital signature of 005. This is the single aspect of 005 I've yet to come to final conclusion on. When first inserting 005 I found it pretty much dead neutral, over time and many incremental and more substantial upgrades I sometimes heard slight slides to analytical side. Finally came to end of nearly every single upgrade to system, so system static over perhaps last  75 hours or so, everything burned in and I'm adjusted to static state of system. So, over all these hours I've experienced far greater sense of analog sound previous to ANY digital I've heard previously (agree with slow filter vs fast).  Still, I do hear a slightest hint of what may be digital signature coming through on certain recordings, audiophile recordings have great sense of organic, natural sound, its with the lesser recordings I hear this sense. I'd likely not notice this without comparisons provided by my present vinyl setup and aural memory of multi 100K vinyl setups, so slight but its there. The question I'm still answering is this signature due to dac or rest of streaming setup. Your comparison to Briscati forces me to assign more blame to 005 vs the streaming setup. Now, I will say, my long evolving and continuing streaming upgrades have been helping greatly in providing more analog like sound, especially adding the OpticalRendu vs SOTM SMS200Neo. LPS, best power cords on every steaming component, all going through power conditioner, FMC PRIOR to server, all these upgrades have helped greatly here. And more streaming upgrades on way, so presume even greater analog signature coming.

Still, the question remains, all things being equal, is 005 the last word in providing sense of analog like sound, the ease and sense of luxury of analog at it's best? Comparison to Briscati makes it seem not. Generally, its thought jitter responsible for the digital sound signature, it could also be something inherent to Sabre chip, or something else? I'd agree this signature very subtle with 005, almost a non-factor, even with the admittance it exists for me. As I stated previously, only hear this with lesser recordings, and still easy to hear past as the holistic system presentation is entirely life like, performers in room experience. It seems many criticize lesser recordings far more than I, my listening sessions four to six hours with no fatigue, only tiring for bed time. Overall, I'd continue to judge 005 as natural, high resolving dac, this extremely small deviation from optimum not a serious liability. I'd also say I'm not at an end with possible improvements here, more streaming upgrades on the way, I fully expect greater analog, less digital presentation in future.