@teajay
Thanks for the reply. I’m not exactly sure why people get angry or snarky, you merely report your observations and we all can either choose to benefit from your findings or not. Its just audio folks. Our own observations may differ or align but isn’t that what’s fun?
Regarding break in, I was always a skeptic but have become a little more open minded about it. Cables, especially if they happen to have inline networks, do take a bit of time. Tube gear, does take a bit of time. Tube gear with tube rectification or tubes in the power supplies seem to take longer still. I dont quite understand why and I used to be mildly dismissive until I experienced my first truly painful break in experience with an Audio Research Ref 5se preamp. I made the assumption it had to do with 4 tubes in the pre and 2 tubes in the power supply.
The most painful break in period though was with the Amber 3. I’m going to guess it was to do with the tube rectification, I don’t know. If someone asked me I would honestly have to say to expect the Amber 3 to come into its own after 400 hours and it still evolves after 500. I know this because I first experienced the Amber 3 in my system by placing a well broken in demo unit into rotation. I then received my brand new unit and it flat out sounded broken. No joke, broken. Today it doesn’t but thats after a long (500+ hours) breakin, a NOS 12au7 tube and setting it to low gain.
It isn’t my lead dac in my main system but it does occupy a place in my office system, anchored by a Leben cs600x. The Amber 3 is a fine dac, the Tubadour is a fine dac, the Orchid is a fine dac as was the Border Patrol. For this system, for what I was after, I sold all of these except the Amber 3. Once again, I wasnt test driving these, I owned them. The cost of entry didnt enter into my decision because (gratefully) this isn’t my rent money. Its entertainment.
BUT...BUT...if anyone reading this believes that any one of the aforementioned dacs is right and the others sound broken, dont believe them. They are each terrific and each suitable for the long term enjoyment of the purchaser. Dont for a minute though believe these are end game giant killer pieces. They are not going to put Aqua or Totaldac or Lampizator or MSB out of business. They are, however, so good that the law of diminishing returns requires a sanity check for each of us. It used to be that dacs up to a certain pricepoint were unlistenable, now, we are lucky that that is no longer the case.
