I really appreciate this thread as I will one day be in the market for a dac. I currently use the dac inside my Boulder 866 integrated amp...which is a great sounding piece and especially when paired with my Auralic Aries G2.2 streamer. I agree with audio_bidder about the importance of a streamer. Between this streamer, a dedicated grounding box tied to an outside grounding rod, a dedicated electrical outlet, and very high quality power cables, I have a near perfect black background from which to hear sound.
Holo May KTE vs. Lampizator Atlantic 3 TRP vs. Mola Mola Tambaqui
I've had months of ear time with all 3 of these extraordinary DACs. Holo and Lampi I own, and Mola Mola was borrowed from a friend. My thoughts:
All 3 of these DACs amazed me in different ways, and are a serious step up from the Denafrips and Oppo DACs I previously had in my systems.
Mola Mola Tambaqui - This is the most detailed DAC of the 3. It has a way of being hyper-detailed without a trace of sibilance. It opened my eyes to how a DAC can drastically improve the 3D holographic nature of sound. Ultimately though, I did find long listening sessions fatiguing. This may have been a result of a the mediocre streaming setup I was running at the time (cheap Intel NUC running Roon).
Holo May KTE - I fell in love with this component within minutes of plugging it in. It was preowned and already broken in. I can crank the volume without being bothered by high frequencies. The weighty bottom end made it seem like I upgraded my amplifiers, my guess is this was a result of the overbuilt monster of an external power supply. Most importantly, the feel of the music and the natural tones got me so much closer to the music, in the same way vinyl does for me. This thing is a tank and has given me trouble free operation nearly all year, staying powered up 24/7. Immense value with this DAC, highly recommended.
Lampizator Atlantic 3 TRP - After unsuccessfully trying to buy this DAC on the used market, I turned to Lampizator NA to purchase new. It was a good experience and Rob ensured everything went smoothly and answered my technical questions. When I received the unit and got it running, the sound was atrocious, the worst component I've ever tested, cheese grater to the ear drums bad. I kept it powered up for weeks and it slowly got better. But still something was missing. I rolled the stock tubes with some Siemens F2As I purchased from a former Atlantic owner (he moved to Poseidon). Instantly the soundstage got huge and lush and I was hooked. This took it to a new level of analog-like sound. I often would forget I was listening to digital, I was just listening and enjoying. Later I tried Tesla EL51 tubes and added a Sophia Electric 274B Aqua II rectifier. These aren't quite as magic in the mids as the Siemens, but they improve bass impact and have beautiful sparkly highs.
In conclusion, the Lampi wins overall due to it's realistic analog sound and holographic nature. The Holo May gets pretty close but in subtle ways reveals a small amount of digital etch, very subtle. The Lampi comes with a lot of trial and error however, finding the right tubes that work for you, with the correct adapters. The unit I ordered is balanced and has volume control. The volume control is okay, but has caused issues feeding an external preamp, which I'm still trying to sort out. If I could go back I would forgo the volume control, and would save money getting a single-ended unit instead of balanced. Single-ended uses 2 output tubes, balanced uses 4.
Getting a proper streamer (Innuos) has made drastic improvements to my system as well. I now believe a great streamer is just as important as a great DAC.
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@audio_bidder I have a question about the Siemens F2A. I also have the Atlantic 3 TRP with the original stock tubes. My unit is the 3-tube unbalanced model. Is the Siemens compatible with this unit, and which tube would it replace? I looked in Lampizator notes and could find no reference to it. Thanks! |
@audio_bidder So your comment about Innuos Sense vs Roon made me go investigate it. I've heard others say that Sense sounded better and I've dismissed it because my experience tells me that Roon is a control program, neither adding or detracting from the sound. I stream Qobuz and use Roon without any DSP. But as I said above, I \was a bit disappointed in the Innuos Zenith MK3 compared to the Grimm. So I investigated Sense. To my surprise, the Innuos sounded much more like it was supposed to. I can't help but suspect that Innuos purposely implemented roon in a way that it sounds inferior to their App. I have used Roon on many devices and have never had this experience before. I'll have to get the Grimm back before I can compare them but it is nice to have the sound back at least closer to normal. So far I'm not loving the Sense App. It has no windows version so I can't use it from my laptop like roon. It's controls are very small and tucked into corners. I'd much rather use a mouse. There seems to be no "play from here" choice on a playlist, but maybe there is a way to make that happen. Seems more difficult to queue up songs, maybe I can work through that. But it sounds better. Jerry |
Interesting thread...I had a similar experience with my Lampi. I bought a new Baltic 3 from Rob shortly after they came out. I won't say it sounded bad out of the box, but certainly it improved significantly over the next several weeks. About a year later, just for fun...because I was already pretty happy with my system... I started playing around with tube rolling...swapped out the stock rectifier for an EML and was surprised to hear such a nice difference in dynamics and control. I continued the journey and swapped out the stock blue balls (PSVANE) for a set of NOS Sylvanias and WOW...the unit was completely transformed. I thought it sounded pretty good as it was but the new input tubes were dramatically better in every way. Would be interesting to do a side by side compare of my Baltic 3 with optimized tubes vs. some of the other higher end Lampi DAC's with stock tubes. My guess is that the optimized Baltic 3 narrows the gap significantly...wondering if anyone has tried the experiment? |
Interesting... I too had the Mola Mola Tambaqui and the Holo May KTE to do an A/B (not the Lampizator though) and my findings were the same. I didn't so much try to pick out the details of the sound more than which sounded more luxurious to my ear for longer listening times. The Holo won hands down. It took me less than 1/2 hour to reach that conclusion because it was obvious. Now, however shorty after making my decision and buying the Holo I heard about the T+A Dac and was told by a few friends that heard it that they are sure it had everything the Holo May had but also more detail. None-the-less the Holo May will stay with me for another 5 years at least as the technology and engineering understanding increases. And to be fair these are all very good DACs. |
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