Musetec (LKS) MH-DA005 DAC

@sns 

the product that I have proposed is not a simple distributor, but an efficient current conditioner. at its output it supplies alternating current with a perfectly sinusoidal constant voltage and frequency.

the features can be found here https://www.online-usv.de/kategorie/usv-xanto

I’m using an lks 100 and lks power supply between my aurender a10 and my 005 using i2s output. I find it provides a slighter sense of ease to the music than usb.   I just tried straight usb again—not 5 minutes ago— and went back to the lks ddc.   Ymmv.    This is all system, room and taste dependent.  
 

I recently listened to my brother’s system on Kauai.   It is similar to mine in that he uses a joule la300 preamp, quintessence speakers (although mine are further down the evolutionary path), and a joule vzn80 amp.  I have a similar amp in my closet; I currently am using a first watt sit-3, ooh la la what a great little amp.   

Back to my point; based on my rave recommendation, my brother bought an 005 and quickly switched to a very expensive EMM streamer/DAC combo.   He loves it and describes it as more analog than the 005.   His system is wonderful and perhaps softens the leading edge of notes ever so slightly in comparison to my system.   But I prefer my system.   It seems a bit more detailed and real to me.  
 

I was happy returning home and sitting in my listening chair.  I was also very happy I didn’t need to start shopping for some EMM gear!
 

This hobby is very individualistic.   I’ve learned long ago that I listen with my own ears and they are the ultimate determinator of what’s best for me.  
 

I’ve got Tim o brien another day playing and when I close my eyes he is in my room with me. 

A lot of great suggestions in the last few posts.  I will try the no footer test on the 005.  It's potentially a free upgrade.

I'm no stranger to AC conditioners and power cables.  For me it has mostly been Shunyata gear.  Over the years, I have gone through about 10 Shunyata conditioners and many more Shunyata power cables.  Each generation was leaps and bounds better than the prior.  I'm heavily biased toward this company.  They make my favorite digital cables as well.

I took the plunge and ordered the HoloAudio Red streamer.  It supports Roon and it also supports Tidal Connect and Spotify Connect.  My old streamer never had the last two features.  Red also has a plethora of digital outputs I can play with.  It's going to be a fun winter for me.

I had Shunyata Anaconda and Python in my system for years, still use a Python VX on lps for NAS.

Critical thing in consideration of inputs on dac is quality of rendering in streamer. The quality Amanero usb board in 005 absolutely requires the best quality rendering from streamer. Far too many usb ports on dedicated streamers come directly off motherboard, motherboard directly transfer any noise on them to that port. Optimized usb ports on streamers must be treated exactly like optimized ports like Amanero usb in005. This means having it's own dedicated board with power supply and femto or OXCO clock, even more optimization can be obtained if this board can be powered via external lps. You will only see this level of optimization with Taiko Extreme, Wadax level streamers, Aurender W20SE has next best optimization I've seen via off the shelf combo server/streamer or one computer setups. For me this rendering deficiency is the greatest liability of nearly all off the shelf streamers, a real shame they charge so much and then have this glaring mistake, charge me the extra $1-2K, but don't leave out a critical function! They do good job with minimizing noise, optimizing software and simplifying user interface, providing nice looking enclosure, but skimp here. Some understand what they're leaving out offering external lps and usb,  Innuos being but one example, others don't even have these options, ridiculous.

With my new streamer I have choice between the absolute best usb optimization via drop in PCIe card, in this case JCAT or Pink Faun usb cards, both include all the optimizations I listed above, and with the capability of being powered via external lps, no power off motherboard power supply.

The other option for optimized usb rendering is via dedicated streamers such as SOTM, the Holo mentioned above, Sonore, and others. The good dedicated streamers do all the optimizations listed above. and the SOTM and Sonore OpticalRendu I'm using at present which I've directly compared to usb out of my previous streamers and present new streamer, which has only somewhat optimized usb are far superior in sound quality.

So, bottom line, you are not hearing full potential with your 005 unless your taking equal care with usb out of streamer. This is not a small upgrade assuming your system is resolving/transparent enough! Get optimized rendering via usb and I guarantee you it will beat any other input on 005, to repeat Amanero board is optimal input with 005, designed to specifically use it. The I2S or other inputs may bypass certain functions within 005, but simpler doesn't always mean better. Also, ask yourself is bypassing this function within 005 really worth the effort of adding more complexity with whatever optimized I2S rendering device one is using. This was my calculation when I decided to not even bother trying I2S with my Singxer SU-6, reportedly one of best I2S renderers out there. Power supply and clock on Amanero board superior to that on SU-6. This became even more clear to me when I observed various experienced users having to modify these I2S devices to overcome sound quality limitations they heard.

@car123 The way you describe 005 is exactly  how I hear it, no softening or hiding anything, simply getting the real thing, more live sounding than any other digital I've ever heard in my system or any other system. I'd not even trade better jitter measurement if it took away any of this sense of liveliness. The greatest thing is the more I expose the 005 the better it gets, no hidden flaws with this dac.

As for battery power vs AC :PC. Symetrical sine waves are one thing nearly all these portable power supplies supply. how that is achieved is another. I and others have heard the liabilities of inferior inverters. I presume there is reason the Stromtanks so costly, superior sound quality vs other battery supplies is that reason. I'm sure there are various levels of sound quality vs various other battery supplies, my motivation isn't high to experiment at this point since I'm so enamored of present sound quality, remains in revelatory territory since new streamer and footer/isolation solutions. Towards that end, just added suspended solution for signal enclosure of Coincident Statement, power supply enclosure continues to use Aurios Pro to diy sandbox. Expect this to be another upgrade vs Stillpoints to maple cutting board sitting in diy sandbox coupled via amp stand to fireplace hearth which is sitting on suspended floor sitting on floor jacks.  All my suspended supports sit on this fireplace hearth. If this works out well, new Thoress phono stage will also be suspended. All  components are being compared to either Aurios or Stillpoints Ultra SS in diy sandboxes with either Birch ply or 1/2" aluminum top plates with integrated vibration planes in diy sandboxes. Already wrote off a multitude of other type footers used over the years, these two are last standing. Aurios can add hard edge, some state metallic sound, but damn things are spacious,open, transparent. Stillpoints keep most of the open, spacious, transparent sound, add greater stability to images within sound stage, mitigate the hard edge. No footers retain all the good things of both, no colorations of any kind, why I maintain no footer is best footer. So far I only maintain this for source components, other components may benefit from being mass loaded and anchored to something solid.

In my server the JCAT XE USB card adds only 10% of the improvement that can be had from the server when powering from the mother power. Another 10% improvement when powering it with a high quality LPS. The majority comes from the s/w & network optimization and a high power power for the server itself. I could still live with the motherboard USB port if I didn’t want to spend money on the JCAT. The motherboard USB sounds as musical, just not as much details I get from JCAT.

I can’t stress enough the importance of a good power supply for any digital components and the Musetec 005, or for that matter most of today’s DAC, will scale very nicely when fed with quality signal and it doesn’t have to be SPDIF. A good USB implementation can work wonders. Apart from the power supply, the two other things that will do the most for any streaming system is by taking great care of s/w and network optimization.