First impressions of new MH-DA006, Musetec flagship
I have received the 006 almost a week ago and have been breaking it in. The price at Shenzhenaudio is $3,900.00 USD, $600 more than the 005. The ad copy states:
"DA006 is a new generation of flagship DAC developed by Musetec over three years and launched in 2024. During this period, it has undergone more than ten revisions and adjustments.
Compared to the previous DA005, the listening experience of DA006 has been improved in all aspects. DA006 has clearer and richer details, a stronger sense of texture, a more stable sound base, better detail control, a wider soundstage, fuller and more powerful, smoother and more natural. . ."
Some brief listening during break in has been very very positive. I will report back when it has run at least 300 hours.
I also happen to own a Suburu so your example is very apt. I bought my Jay’s transport direct from Alvin Chee in Singapore. Repair work is provided by TEK Audio Specialties in Buda Texas. In fact, my remote needed repair and Todd at TEK fixed for me. I was grateful I didn’t have to ship it to Singapore but no doubt there are those for whom this is not a concern. Each to his/her own.
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I'm unaware of any repair needed to a Musetec dac, at least to 005, may have seen issues with 004, but then that was major platform for diy mods and some bricked them.
@dbb I recall your comparison to Holo. One thing that's critical to evaluating R2R dacs that many don't account for is clocking. R2R resistor arrays extremely sensitive to timing errors. USB generally not going to be optimal input, I2S the way to go as clock runs on separate leg. And then in order to reach max potential clock clocking should generally be done in streamer or renderer. The Harmony is the hot dac of the moment (reason I chose it) and I've seen reviews from both complete novices and seasoned reviewers, I've yet to see what I'd consider to be optimal setup in these reviews. I'll eventually purchase either Musician Phoenix or Denafrips Gaia DDC, run this with Audioquest Diamond HDMI (level playing field with my usb cable of choice) and set Harmony to lock to clock in these high end converters. Harmony has been both dismissed and claimed to be state of art or near state of art by various reviewers. Based on these reviews can't say if this all hype or ignorance, I'll try to place it in context by optimizing the entire setup. Going in I don't expect a $2700 R2R dac to be state of art or even near state of art. the amount of technology in this dac is nice value, not state of art.
Going into comparison, I admit bias for Sabre chip dacs, I fully expect even 005 to exceed Harmony in resolving/transparency, 006 even higher expectation. My take on R2R going in is nice sense of musicality, but boring in long run, perhaps even short run. R2R dacs nice forgiving sources that hide warts, Sabre dacs expose warts elsewhere in system, high resolving sources require system fine tuning. This why some claim Sabre chip dacs not musical.
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@sns I appreciate your knowledge and insights. My experience now with the 006 confirms what you are saying on exposing the rest of the system. My Hegel P30 preamp may be too bright for the 006. I will be experimenting with power cords too. It might have been just luck, but the 005 was just drop in. No system changes needed. |
@sns It sounds like the Laiv is on it’s way to becoming at least as good as the 005, but with a different personality. It was a nice analysis. I look forward to your breaking in the 006 and reporting back. I will soon be using a silver power cable and the Coincident Statement Line Stage. I’m hoping that will take it to where I want it.
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