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DAC recommendation in 5 to 10K range

I recently get to the point that I want to try a new DAC in $5 to $10K range and would like to know if there are recommendations I should try and audition.

 

My current DAC is a Denafrips Terminator, to me, Terminator is an overall fun DAC that provide good clarity, energy, and scale. It has strong macrodynamic focus with good impact and punch, as well as solid resolving power and texture, but I feel drawback is lacking micro dynamic capability, tonality is not organic, neither is presentation, treble is not that refined, and can sometimes get too hot and gritty. What I hope in my next DAC is a balanced DAC that lean a bit more toward the relaxed and slightly sweeter smoother side of things, great organicness, great placement accuracy and depth in overall stage, great coherency and liquidity, as well as having great impact and punch.

elan120

Showing 1 response by blisshifi

blisshifi's avatar
blisshifi
1,230 posts
 

@elan120 You’re on a great track to consider T+A. In full disclosure, I am a new authorized dealer for T+A, but I do have experience with dozens of DACs over the years before I became a dealer a few months ago.

Most recently in the last year, I compared a number of DACs, including a fully modded DirectStream (upgraded transformers, linear power supply, etc), a Lampizator Baltic 3, Mola Mola Tambaqui, and the $38,500 T+A SDV-3100HV amongst a few just this last year. I would pick the T+A DAC 200 over the DirectStream, Lampizator, and Mola Mola. The DAC 200 will has more body and musicality than the DirectStream or Mola Mola. It also has an incredible noise floor and is not rounded at the frequency extremes like the Lampizator (and that was after putting $1000 of tubes in the Baltic 3 to try to get the best out of it). For its price range, I can think of no better DAC. The Mola Mola is very good, albeit out of your price range unless you find it used, but it is a much more analytical DAC, so it will depend on your system synergy and listening preferences. 

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