Mola Mola Tambaqui Roon vs Separate Streamers

@krell_fan1 I have been singing the praises of the Sonore Optic streaming stuff for a while. I had 3 OpticRendu's but sold 2 recently. Reason being is that I got the Lumin X1 DAC which also has fibre streaming, along with 2 output streaming. 

I did a comparison of the fibre stream of the X1 vs the opticalRendu and I preferred the Sonore a bit more. The sound was a bit more refined with the oR while the X1 was aggressive and fast. Both have their merits and place. However, when you consider the price delta between the 2 units, the oR is a great buy.

I also have a Playback Desing Plink fibre streamer. Getting a Playback Designs DAC in the next few months. The fibre cables in this streamer are different from what is used in the Sonore and Lumin X1 gear. I believe it is considered industrial grade fibre.

The PLink should be rather good.

BTW - when I was considering the Tambaqui about 4 years ago. the distributer at GTT Audio told me the Aries streamer is a better streamer than the Network streamer in the Tambaqui. He also said when he demos the unit he uses the Aries streamer.

Nagra DACs get PlayBack Designs digital boards. They also do not get the best PBD boards. Those are saved for the cheaper PBD DACs (relative to Nagra). I read this in an interview with the PBD designer Andreas Koch.

The FPGA based DAC was first created by Andreas Koch at Playback Designs. Everyone else is following his coattails. Nagra decided to just buy the boards from PBD instead of creating their own, such as PS Audio (Ted Smith). I read somewhere that Ted spent time with Andreas to learn how to do FPGA.

These 2 videos are informative on the history of digital.

E89: Andreas Koch and Digital Recording (youtube.com)

E93: More with Andreas Koch! (youtube.com)

I think doing digital correctly is complicated and I question the credentials of almost every company charging an arm and a leg for their DACs. At least with Andreas I can justify paying for his knowledge.

One reason I bought the Schitt Yggi+ LIM and the OG was because of the long digital history of the designer, Mike Moffat.

I will get one more DAC in the future and that will be either a PBD or Rockna, because of the designers.

BTW - the implementation of the Tambaqui was first done around 2006 by Bruno P. This was for the Makua preamp’s optional DAC module. The Tambaqui was the result of customers asking for an external DAC.

There was in interview on ASR web site were Bruno said this

@fastfreight I have not heard anything about those 2 new DACs. Now I have something to read while I waste time at work.