First impressions of new MH-DA006, Musetec flagship

I’d suggest it silly to spend $1800 on ddc with laptop

The whole selling point of DDC is exactly that. You don’t need to spend on a better source and cheap laptop will work since the DDC will be shielding the nastiness and reclocking the signal anyway. What I wanted to find out is how much Gaia can shield from the upstream. I don’t think it’s 100% capable but wanted a confirmation. Anyway, I would think spending $1800 on a better source is more beneficial even though it doesn’t have i2s out. This is why we don’t see folks using or benefiting from DDC from better source, like PF Streamer, Taiko Extreme, Innous Statement.

I have no doubt the laptop streamer would sound better with ddc. I'm just questioning whether the $1800 would be better spent on better streamer. That based on my reasoning that stopping contamination upstream is preferable to downstream.

Hmm, not sure I agree that ddc could be of benefit for any streamer that no. 1 lacks I2S output, that is if we believe I2S is inherently better than any usb. Or no. 2, has I2S output, but not as well implemented as a ddc. You're now seeing streamers with proprietary interfaces, based on reviews I have no doubts those better than typical I2S setups. I'll continue to maintain optimized I2S superior to optimized usb.

Perhaps some of these proprietary interfaces will make it into more affordable equipment, until then we really only have usb and I2S to play with. Not expecting that anytime soon, sure these technologies patented, so reverse engineering would have to be diy thing.

@sns @debjit_g  Denafrips is going thru upgrading  gear have they said that they are going to upgrade the GAIA or is it at a level that their is not much left to upgrade? 

sns @debjit_g  Denafrips is going thru upgrading  gear have they said that they are going to upgrade the GAIA or is it at a level that their is not much left to upgrade? 
 

I have not heard they said about upgrading Gaia. In fact they have also not advertised any upgrades to Pontus to the 15th Gen until it was released. There is always room for improvements in any components - even if you are not changing design, just upgrading internal parts could provide a very noticeable change. 

My Gaia is 12th or latest version, seems I recall reading something about minor improvements. Often times manufacturers improve things in ongoing basis, may not mention this and/or designate as new version or model.

All equipment subject to ongoing improvements, who knows when your piece becomes yesterday's model. Sonore just came out with Deluxe versions of my OpticalRendu and OpticalModule, so now I'm behind the curve again, this stuff is never ending!