First impressions of new MH-DA006, Musetec flagship

@dbb 

Thank you for your review of the 006 done in your usual comprehensive style.  I'll have to go back and listen to Gilbert's Mahler 7.  

As others are finding, notably in this thread @jc4659, the 005 responds beautifully to improvements in the overall system.  In stages I have improved my speakers, my amplifier and my AC conditioning, straining my audio budget.  Clearly the 005 is not the limiting factor for me and for others and I am enjoying it even more.  But your review is tempting me.

Once again Musetec has filled its new DAC with some of the best interior components availble from around the world and, unlike many other manufacturers, is proud to tell you exactly what's inside.  The designer, who is a music lover, tests each new part by ear.  In years past we lauded such designers, by name, who mixed technology and art so well.  

Thanks for the review! It certainly looks like a step up in design and engineering from the 005. I’ll be curious to see if the ASR guys test the new unit in comparison to the older one.

@melm 

Good to hear from you. I expected that improvements in my 005 dac would not be a path to improving my system since I perceived the 005 as the strongest link in the chain. When the 006 became available I couldn’t resist buying it. I am also curious about Musetec's preamp.

I like the Gilbert Mahler 7 because I was there, and it was a very good performance If you're new to the Mahler 7th, Bernstein's first performance, in the 60s I think, is considered by some to be one of the very best musically and sonically. I think the one by Horenstein is the best musically but is poor sonically. Just my 2 cents.

@yakbob 

I feel ASR's approach is not useful.

From the Musetec website on the 006:

The design of all functions of the DA006 only takes up one-fifth of the entire design period, or even less. A lot of time is spent on the selection of components and the design of the circuit form. The criterion for judging yes or no is based on the actual listening experience, and the test data of the instrument is only used as a reference. An easily verifiable fact is that when we use different capacitors or resistors with the same paper parameters in the circuit and perform comparison tests through an audio analyzer, we cannot see the difference in test results due to the change of these parts, but the change in the listening experience is huge. Therefore, we always believe that some of the data that can be analyzed by the existing audio analyzers can only quantify certain characteristics of the sound signal to a small extent, and the human listening experience is very complex. The limited data that the instrument pays attention to cannot determine the human listening experience. We must spend a lot of time carefully selecting parts. This is also the reason why it takes us a lot of time to make this DAC.

I must modify my conclusion on tonal balance. I changed streamers to the ifi Zen Streamer. The lower mid- range and upper bass are back to being warm and rich. The highs are still more forward than the 005. It seems, as stated by @sns that the dac will clearly reveal the sound of each component in your system. My conclusions must be seen subject the sound of my components (and yours if you buy it).