First impressions of new MH-DA006, Musetec flagship

I have an 006 incoming.  Are there any recommendations of best places to shop for a gaia? 

@brbrock I've not heard the Mojo.

@car123 Good for you, I purchased my Gaia from @audioman58, great price and fast delivery. Paul also gave me the heads up on the Tubulus I2S cable. I'll be interested in hearing your take on 006 with Gaia after spending some time with.

Thanks, sns.  I spoke with Paul today and have a Gaia incoming.  I expect it will arrive before my 006 thus I will get a chance to run it in on the 005.  Paul spoke highly of the tubulus I2S cables.  I will hold off for the moment.  I'll post impressions as I get to know the Gaia and the 006 when it arrives.  I'm definitely looking forward to these next steps.  Thanks for all of your guidance and reports.  

@car123 I see you're already aware of burn in issues. So my experience with burn in has been at least 400 hours on 006 although it will sound good right out of the box. I found micro dynamics the last thing to settle in, 005 bettered 006 until around 350 hours. Gaia and I2S cables kind of the same thing, ok right out of the box, Now just over 300 hours on both, around 250 hours when I began to hear an even more relaxed presentation, trailing edges began to catch up to attack, this added to what was already a nice flow or analog presentation.

Not sure I've fully explained what I've been calling flow in regard to analog sound vs digital. Digital presentations in my experience have nearly universally provided a more precise sound, where performers are more individualized, less part of a whole. I preferred the Harmony dac in early stages since it provided  more of this sense of a group of musicians playing in 'harmony' for lack of a better word, another word would be holistic. Digital, especially highly resolving digital such as 006 may have tendency to emphasize or spotlight these individual performers, or performance in general, result is listener tends to focus on sound quality vs music, the typical analytical perspective. I think this why some prefer R2R dacs in general to chip and some FPGA dacs.

The other thing I've heard that consistently differs between vinyl and digital presentations is what I"ve called flow. Timing errors or jitter can present as an impediment to flow, an almost imperceptible sense of 'nervousness' may be instilled in listener, this may cause a touch of exhaustion or tiredness in which listening sessions may be cut short. Based on my own experience and nearly universal reviews digital has greatly improved in this aspect, especially in recent years, severe digititus seems to be a thing of the past. In spite of this improvement I was still getting just the slightest bit of this presentation with 006 prior to insertion of Gaia and sync to Gaia clock. The improvement in flow this provided  I now attribute to the silences between notes, something the musician John Cale has long spoken on. The idea is the silence between notes is as important to the music as the notes themselves. With further banishment of timing errors the almost imperceptible silences become far more meaningful, its as if time has slowed down, digital no longer feels rushed, I relax into the presentation. This was long the difference between my vinyl and digital setups, with vinyl I've always had this sense of relaxation, even luxuriousness during listening sessions, very soothing in a way digital could never quite match.

I've kept an audio journal for nearly thirty years, keeping notes with every listening session. Critical analysis led to many changes over the years, some were retrograde, some lateral, over the long term improvements were made. For the past two months the only thing written in regard to my digital listening sessions, "best sound quality ever."