First impressions of new MH-DA006, Musetec flagship


I have received the 006 almost a week ago and have been breaking it in. The price at Shenzhenaudio is $3,900.00 USD, $600 more than the 005. The ad copy states:

"DA006 is a new generation of flagship DAC developed by Musetec over three years and launched in 2024. During this period, it has undergone more than ten revisions and adjustments.

Compared to the previous DA005, the listening experience of DA006 has been improved in all aspects. DA006 has clearer and richer details, a stronger sense of texture, a more stable sound base, better detail control, a wider soundstage, fuller and more powerful, smoother and more natural. . ."

Some brief listening during break in has been very very positive. I will report back when it has run at least 300 hours.

dbb

@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."

 

@sns were you able to set the Laiv to "source" clock with Gaia i2s?  If so, is it the 12th gen Gaia?  I have an early Gaia and no such luck for me.

 

@dbb before giving up on the P30, there are some upstream tweaks that take you deeper into analog territory.  I thought I was done with USB regeneration until someone brought over an SOtM tX-USBultra regenerator w/ Ferrum Hypsos power supply.  Shocked me and the cost is fair.  Another one is Network Acoustics Muon Pro.  I can't defend their pricing but the results I can.  Using the Muon with NA's Ethernet cable was too heavy handed in my setup.  I preferred NA's Muon w/ JCAT gold, or NA's ethernet cable alone.

@wynnytsky  Thanks for your suggestion. I went through a lot of ups and downs over the first five weeks of break-in. Some were no doubt due to changes in sound. Others due to my own impatience and moods during listening. After about five weeks both my listening brain and the the 006 stabilized. I have been happy with the end result and have taken a vacation from obsessive critical lisitening. I have concluded for now that I am getting the best sound from a DAC that I have experienced and am trying to just enjoy the music. Of course the urge to tweak will return, but I am trying to resist for now. In the future, I may try USB line treatment or experiment with streamer upgrades. This hobby presents opportunities for endless experiment. 

During the break-in I did buy and sell a Coincident Statement Line Stage. It had a beautiful tube presentation but I still preferred the Hegel P30. So, for the record I am more than satisfied with the sound I am getting from the 006.

@wynnytsky I have the latest or 12th series Gaia, can't imagine why you'd not find this possible. 

 

So, on Harmony screen, I2S clock setting are you getting message, "no compatible I2S clock available?"  When using Gaia clock you should see I2S at top left of display. I can find no evidence earlier Gaia's cannot support choice of using it's internal clock.

 

I'll reiterate the entire streaming chain needs to be optimized in order to extract full potential of 006. I used to run SOTM usb solution, found the Sonore products superior, specifically the OpticaModule and OpticalRendu, best lps one can afford for these Don't forget the Denafrips DDC also offers further usb opimization via it's STM32F446 Advanced AMR based MCU interface.

 

@dbb Unfortunate you didn't find the Statement to be your cup of tea.

@dbb if you prioritize max(bandwidth), max(info retrieval), min(noise floor), then I invite you to obsess over an autoformer!  Never heard this one, but I'd love to hear someone's impression

https://rambleaudio.com/en/products/design-by-mr-k-ppa-01-passive-preamplifier

 

@sns Yes changing LOCAL to I2S says "No compatible i2s clock is available", then reverts to LOCAL, which doesn't sound as going straight USB.  My Rockna can lock on the source clock, so who knows.  If anything the Laiv taught me to love spdif again after many years of i2s.  Doing Gaia AES into Rockna right now.

 

For those doing i2s it's very easy to flip absolute phase when configuring DDC jumpers for your DAC.  But if you play this track...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCif9K8EdJY

...while pointing this $13 sound meter at the speaker diaphragm, then the red/green LED should match the polarity from the youtube link...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09B13ZSDV?ref_=ppx_hzod_title_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1_0

Test all drivers to confirm the xovers are wired correctly.  It can read my compression drivers through a screen, but I need to crank it louder to read the tweeter.