Musetec (LKS) MH-DA005 DAC

@sns
It seems to me that the vocal excercises you outline might work to help "voice" your listening room rather than the component system.

When I go to a dealer or a show I always carry with me, in one form or another, some music files with which I am very familiar. It is easy and inevitable that I would compare what I am hearing there to what I hear at home. It requires no special aural memory to do that. I suppose we have all done that. It may, though, require some insight to separate the different room from the different components. I believe someone here has written of taking his Musetec to a dealer in order to focus more carefully on a different component of interest. IMO that is much the same, and requires similar aural memory skills, when visiting a concert. In fact, avoiding that comparison is virtually impossible--for me.

IMO the Musetec is agnostic when it comes to silver cables. It probably has much more to do with the rest of the system.

You are correct when you say that the Musetec is voiced wonderfully. I would say, accurately. I do not want a component to be "warm." That would be coloration, a distortion. The DAC should be neutral. A cello, piano or bassoon can sound warm and the neutrality of the DAC should let that warm color of the instrument through. I think this is a common misunderstanding of what a good component should accomplish.

It is all too common that components that measure very well will reproduce instruments and voices as flat and colorless. This forum, like others, then find their owners asking for recomendations for amps/preams/DACs that sound warm. One way this often happens is as a request for recommendations of solid state units that sound like tubes.

@dbb
"The Serene review seems impossibly contradictory. More transparent than the Benchmark, but yet more engaging and musical. I would need a lot more information in order to understand what exactly their reporting."

As i wrote earlier, reviews today are "simply expressing personal likes and dislikes in audiophile jargon." Forget asking for more; that’s what they do. Not to mention extolling the detail in the sound of a dentist drill. And with a song he gets a lump in his throat. Who knows? It could be Covid-19!

My own experience with long term pursuit of ever increasing levels of transparency/resolution is that vast majority of recording sound more real, like flesh and blood performers. Fundamental issue that needs to be addressed is timbre, tonality, get that part right with analog section of system first, than you can pursue greater resolution/transparency via source components. With streaming jitter is the critical factor, timing is everything if seeking analog like sound qualities.

I listen to pretty much every genre and quality of recording, very rare I have to remove recording from library due to intolerable sound quality. Some think you have to color sound to get here, I beg to differ, the more natural sound one's system produces the wider variety of recordings one can listen to. I don't consider natural a coloration, I've had both romantic and analytical systems, those were colored systems. Both made certain recordings intolerable, you know you've hit the mark when pleasurable listening sessions don't require a culling of recordings based on sound quality.

@sns  " . . .     Both [analytical and romantic approachess] made certain recordings intolerable, you know you've hit the mark when pleasurable listening sessions don't require a culling of recordings based on sound quality."

 Yes. This is my goal. I've experimented with two inexpensive highly transparent preamps, the Topping  Pre90 and the Gustard P26. Some recordings were wonderfully clear but too many others were rendered thin, harsh, and fatiguing. My more expensive, but older Hegel P30 still managed to beat them in realism, natural timber, and texture even though it is not SOTA in transparency. Hegel is coming out soon with an updated P30 that may have SOTA transparency. 

I thought about what I should do last night regarding a preamp for my Livingroom system. I considered the Bricasti M12, Meitner M3, SimAudio 390, T+A 200 DAC, and some others.

I also considered some standalone DACs with the HoloMay Serene such as the Rockna WaveDream SE XLR, Mola Mola Tambaqui, and Bricasti M1 SE.

However, The advantages of the LA4 or HoloMay Serene preamps + the Musetec 005 brought me back to that combo. Which is what I will use (if the Serene is what I expect).

My only issue with the Musetec 005 is that it does not pair well with my RAAL VM-1a headphone amp in my office. I use a Benchmark DAC3B for that. However, a single DAC to hook up to both my VM-1a system and KEF LS50 Meta system would be ideal. I am duplicating the optical streaming in my office for the 2 DACs, a waste of money

Getting the very best setup for the VM-1a is important to me since at the moment it is my very best sound. I think the Livingroom ’big’ system should surpass it but you never know when the room gets involved.

@yyzsantabarbara I recall you mentioning 005 not working well with RAAL headphone amp. What is it about this pairing that you don't like, on paper it would seem good match, nice tubes and can run in various modes.