I have experienced and owned dozens of DAC's. I always come back to R2R based designs with tubes. I have the rare opportunity to have an Audio Note DAC 5 Special and it has been modified as well. It has a different receiver chip based on the Xmos chip so it can natively take up to 384k on USB or 768k over I2s as well as stacked AD1865 chips. It is an end of life type of experience. Tubes without output transformer designs are definitely a step backward but those can approach magic just not like an OPT design that needs no brick wall filter as the OPT does that for you.
Looking for a vinylesk sounding DAC
I cannot say I wasn’t satisfied with my system.
Laptop (Quobuz Studio) - > Schiit Bifrost 2 - > Ocellia Reference RCA - > Werner Acoustics, Selene (active tube preamp using two VT-231 from RCA) - > passive preamp - > Ocellia Reference RCA - > First Watt F6 dual mono custom built - > HEDD Audio’s "Heddphone" / Hifiman HE 4
From the beginning I started to built it I had a quite concrete idea of what it should sound like in the end: vinylesk without using vinyl. It took me a while to get there and now I really thought I got it: Due to the F6 the outcome is brutally powerful and incredibly fast while the tube stage adds lots of body, depth and a rich organic undertone. Finally the RCA’s from Ocellia were adding the fine raffinement and a nice holographic soundstage. Nothing smears, in just every situation everything stays transparent, well controlled/articulated and the separation is just excellent.
BUT when listening to streamed vinyl I still feel the need for action - I just want EVERY track from quobuz to sound like this. Please take just some seconds and listen to this:
https://musicandvinyl.blogspot.com/2020/08/haruomi-hosono-from-aegean-sea.html?m=1
There is just MORE elasticity, MORE tonal density, MORE plankton, MORE concentration to the point, MORE light-footedness and MORE palpability (compared to a "disdainful" quobuz stream). Do you know what I mean?
I still think and hope a new dac could be the nirvana-solution. But which one would manage the job to sound just like vinyl (99% would be ok...)?
Happy to hear your suggestions!
Laptop (Quobuz Studio) - > Schiit Bifrost 2 - > Ocellia Reference RCA - > Werner Acoustics, Selene (active tube preamp using two VT-231 from RCA) - > passive preamp - > Ocellia Reference RCA - > First Watt F6 dual mono custom built - > HEDD Audio’s "Heddphone" / Hifiman HE 4
From the beginning I started to built it I had a quite concrete idea of what it should sound like in the end: vinylesk without using vinyl. It took me a while to get there and now I really thought I got it: Due to the F6 the outcome is brutally powerful and incredibly fast while the tube stage adds lots of body, depth and a rich organic undertone. Finally the RCA’s from Ocellia were adding the fine raffinement and a nice holographic soundstage. Nothing smears, in just every situation everything stays transparent, well controlled/articulated and the separation is just excellent.
BUT when listening to streamed vinyl I still feel the need for action - I just want EVERY track from quobuz to sound like this. Please take just some seconds and listen to this:
https://musicandvinyl.blogspot.com/2020/08/haruomi-hosono-from-aegean-sea.html?m=1
There is just MORE elasticity, MORE tonal density, MORE plankton, MORE concentration to the point, MORE light-footedness and MORE palpability (compared to a "disdainful" quobuz stream). Do you know what I mean?
I still think and hope a new dac could be the nirvana-solution. But which one would manage the job to sound just like vinyl (99% would be ok...)?
Happy to hear your suggestions!