DAC - Aqua Formula or Aqua La Scala

Mi4 I think we've talked before,

We sell all of your gear including the STR preamp, and the Persona 9H and we have both the Formula and the Lascala.

We agree that the STR preamp will be a bottleneck as it is a digital preamp in order to run the room correction.

So you would be digitizing the wonderful analog sound of the Aqua. 

The Str is wonderful for the price but with the 9H's resolving quality a good tube preamp would be our recommendation then party on with the Aqua gear.

If you have any questions you know where to find us.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Anthem, Paradigm, Aqua Hif dealers

Dmance,  we would adamantly disagree with that concept. 

The Chord digital is uber clean, which is not what the Persona 9H need they need a bit of additonal warmth. We had Chord Digital for years, clean, fast, articulate but not on the warmer side of the spectrum, the Aqua Lascala or Formula are both much warmer analog sounding dacs, not as clean as the Chord Dave sound but much more analog like. 

Also the Mscaler can be duplicated with an Innous Zenith which through Roon can also upconvert as well as cross convert to DSD if your dac can handle DSD decoding, and then you will get an awesome Roon Core for the same money as the Mscaler.

We would recommend the STR going it is a great $4k Dac/preamp but not really up to the class of matching product that should be played with a speaker like the 9H. 

MI4 is using the Anthem STR power amp which is pretty good, adding a good tube preamp and then even better digital will make that system really jump up and perform.

We actually have MI4 same system Anthem gear and the Personas. we can setup any major combination.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Innous, Anthem, Paradigm Persona, Aqua Dealers

We are loving the Manly 300b preamp gigantic soundstage, great tonallity,  super organic, just extra ordinary the magic of a 300b vacumm tubes in a preamp


Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Manly Labs dealers

Dmance, you heard that combo on your system? Or somewhere else?

We have not heard that specific combo setup exactly as you’ve heard so we can’t really comment on that, the Dave which we have heard and most Chord Digital like DCS goes for speed articulation and transparency, never heard a Chord digital setup that we would say that sounds lush or rich.

Remember one persons’ transparency can be another persons too bright. So it would all come down to system matching.

We would still stick with our recommendations of going tube preamp then the choice of digital can be taken separately.

We had a client who demoed the T+A Dac 8 DSD vs the Chord Dave and was very impressed by how close the T+A Dac was to the Dave.

You should hear one if you can shockingly good digital $4,200.00 then invest in an Innous Zenith which is also your Roon Core and can upsample Tidal to DSD and you will get a very similar sound for less money and have a Roon Core to boot.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Paradigm, Innous, Aqua, T+A dealers

yes, the Anthem Str is a decent preamp and a decent dac but you can get far better results by upgrading to even better electronics.