First impressions of new MH-DA006, Musetec flagship

I've got perhaps a dozen hours on the tubulus, and less on the new optical module deluxe, but I can assuredly say that my system has reached new heights--new levels of detail and resolution with even more involvement than ever before.  Some of the challenges we sometimes face when chasing extreme resolution is the loss of involvement with the music, cookie cutter imaging, harshness, and other features we label digititis.  My system is displaying none of those symptoms.  Attack and decay sound real.  It is very easy to pick out every expression and nuance contained in a recording.  Yet, I find myself drawn into the music and able to let it wash into me without focusing on every little detail, yet the details are there.

The tubulus cable seems to bring more of these positive qualities but with a lot of subtly.  It replaced a wireworld silver starlight, no slouch, but the tubulus is already better.  It was worth the cost to me.  YMMV.  And I look forward to continuing evolution as the cable and the rest of the system keeps settling together.  I do feel the 006 and gaia are mostly stabilized with at least 400 hours of running time.

I did run the system for a short period of time without my optical moat in place.  I moved a few components around.  It was a big disappointment running ethernet straight into my aurender.  I lost many of the good qualities that are present with the moat in place.

Optimizing streaming can be daunting and expensive with much trial and error required.  However, it is definitely worth the effort.    

@car123 What I find most enlightening is we both have very nice vinyl setups and our nearly exact same digital setups are competing very favorably with those vinyl setups, goes to show how far digital and/or streaming has come.

Now, one thing I've been meaning to ask. Have you compared internal clock in 006 to Gaia clock (sync vs async), and what are your findings?

Sound quality still evolving for me, somewhere between 300 and 400 for both Gaia and Tubulus, I decided to just listen to burn in sometime back. Decay's and harmonic development are most noticeable changes. With both decay and attack coming into equilibrium along with more colorful harmonics presentation is even more analog like. Last night I was envisioning  an analog waveform and how digital tries to recreate this via sampling and interpolation, Gaia clocking and inherent qualities of 006 combining to make a much more believable clone of that waveform, not so much chopped up and individual samples, rather a continuous and uninterupted wave.

Just spent an hour in the sweet spot, sounding absolutely amazing.  Definitely sweetening, softening, focusing even more.

I tried async when I first fired up gaia and 006 but haven't tried it since.  Sync was better out of the gate and I'm still using the gaia clock..  You are as well, aren't you?

What I'm hearing is truly astonishing.  I've never heard my system sound better.  

@car123 You say this is the best DAC you have had in your system.  Can you tell me what you have had before.

@car123 Same with me, tried async a couple times early on. The difference easily heard within seconds/minutes, smaller sound stage, less spaciousness, this to the point I've never bothered to explore further.

@brbrock Noticed thread you started where you mentioned 006 might be too fatiguing. Where did you get this impression? I can't imagine a highly resolving dac being less analytical, more forgiving.  @dbb  had issues early on, don't know where he's at with 006 today. Don't recall seeing a single review anywhere on interweb stating 006 fatiguing. Some may project certain sound qualities on Sabre chip dacs, implementation is key. I did same projection on R2R prior to my Laiv Harmony, lower resolution, laid back, no excitement, this not true.