First impressions of new MH-DA006, Musetec flagship

@stuartk

I thought I’d chime in here as I have followed Chinese direct or semi-direct goods for a long time. I did once send a board back to Musetec for updating. I have a very high regard for Musetec née LKS, its products and how it does business so you can keep this bias in mind.

First, it has to be said that, having followed its digital products closely from the 004 through the 005 and now with the 006 I have yet to hear of anyone having a problem that needs a repair. Musetec’s quality control seems to have been exemplary. So too the quality of its parts. The other factor mitigating any problem is that their DACs are very modular. That means that if there’s a problem, it can usually and easily be traced to a board (perhaps with the aid of an email from the factory.) An offending board can easily be lifted out (a few screws and an unplug) and sent to the factory for repair. That is how most of the direct Chinese suppliers work it even if they have a domestic presense of some sort. The domestic agent might hold your hand in the process if you purchased there. Sending the board to China and its return is no more a problem, and probably less, than sending a complete unit from one US coast to the other.

That being clear, I know that there are probably some folks who will want no part of opening up a component case and removing a board. They will either have to depend upon the very good record of quality control, the very high quality of compnents within and/or possibly the help of a more technically minded friend.

Too my mind the benefits of the high value of direct buying from overseas are clearly worth the limited anxiety. Your money, your choice.

In the interest of comparison I purchased LAIV Harmony dac. Many positive reviews of this dac and I'm interested in hearing a R2R dac vs. Sabre chip 006.

@sns You have ordered both I assume.  Can't wait to read your conclusions. It would be interesting to throw the new Gustard x30 into the mix too.

I haven’t heard it, but someone on another forum mentioned that the Gustard X30 ran very warm, maybe even hot. Sounded like Gustard had to run the new ES9039 Pro DACs pretty hard to get the desired performance in this particular application. A bit of a red flag for me that doused any further interest.

Harmony already shipping, 006 still waiting. In the meantime Harmony vs. 005 will be interesting. Mostly I just want to compare timbre between an r2r and sabre dac, so many claims of how r2r is more 'natural' sounding than sabre chip dacs.

Another sabre chip dac not in my plans, T&A Dac200 would be next in line after 005,006, Harmony comparison. Burr Brown chips for PCM, 1bit for DSD, the 1 bit converter supposedly better.