Advice needed: It's time for a new DAC
Hello People of Audiogon!
I received some help a little while back when I was considering upgrading my speakers so I am looking to the community again for guidance and opinions. It is time to upgrade my DAC.
My current system is Sasha DAW's driven by a Luxman L-509X.
The three DAC's on my short list are:
MSB Discrete
Berkeley Alpha V3
Chord DAVE
One thing to note is that I am in Canada so many brands are difficult if not impossible to audition.
My priority is "musicality" or "soul". What's this? Well to me, it means feeling. The Luxman and Sasha's well convey musical emotion and that is important to me. I don't know how to describe it better beyond that. They have flow (perhaps PRAT, to use another vague term). Sounds have meat to them and texture. The music feels real.
The second priority is three dimensionality.
The third is resolution.
My one caveat is no tube DAC's. Tubes, for me, just don't work well based on my listening style and habits. I love tubes, I've owned tubes and tubes are wonderful, but as things are now, I just don't want them in a DAC. Perhaps they will find their way into my system in a pre-amp in the future.
I listen primarily to Tidal but MQA is not a priority for me. I would switch to Qobuz but they were not available in Canada until recently and all my play lists in Roon are with Tidal tracks so I suspect a switch will be a real headache, but I digress. My point is MQA isn't really important and DSD isn't necessary either.
Of the above DAC's, if you have heard them, what are your thoughts/opinion?
Thank you in advance,
-Paul
Before you sell your T+A, make sure that you have have enough hours on the PCM side of the DAC. There are a couple of posters on the HeadFi forum who recently found out that the PCM section took about 200+ hours to come on it's own. In fact these guys liked the PCM presentation as much or slightly better than the DSD presentation. But this is a headphone forum and they do not have as much experience with loudspeakers. Good luck! |
@milpai good to know... I feel like I've put at least that into it, but yeah I'll do some more listening. |
DAC's have a huge impact on ultimate performance. Synergy is also a real thing in my experience. Some DAC's I liked with one combination of gear, but not with another. Try to demo as much/many as you can if possible (not always easy). Old timers, like me, all have our favorites. My faves Ayre and Bricasti. |
@bigfatpaulie , I own the Tambaqui and for a while I didn’t quite know how I felt about it. But I was putting it in standby all the time, which was my mistake. I realized that to sound its best, it takes quite a few hours - maybe 10 or more. Not sure if this applies to you but I also found it to be lifeless and with a bit of glare until I realized I should just leave it on. I thought it didn’t quite have enough impact and as such wasn’t engaging. Now that I leave it on, I think it is fantastic - high resolution and dynamic but with a hair of lushness to it that to my ear at least makes it musical. |
