Musetec (LKS) MH-DA005 DAC

After 005’s arrival, first day I just checked it works properly. Yesterday I made some power cords and interconnects to put 005 in my system and make one empty inlet in my Stella P3 regenerator. Partly because its predecessor was ADI-2 pro whose audio io is phone jack, it took some time and labor. I had to rearrange gears and cables. It took some time to make it sound and some aspects of the setup are changed.

One minor trouble was that I once failed to update 005’s firmware. Pushing the flash erase button makes the unit not recognized as an USB audio device. After the firmware rewritten it is detected by computers again. But according to Jinbo, 005 is delievered with the latest firmware already so update is needless!

So I had some hours of listening session today and I’d like to say shortly. Its details and soundstage is great. It renders depth and layers and fills the whole space behind speakers even at quite low volume. Microdetail is superb, as many said you’ll very frequently notice what you haven’t heard yet in your familiar tracks. Dynamic constrast is also great, I can turn down the voulme further than I used to with ADI-2.

Sound color is very composed, doesn’t glitter excessively. Texture is not silky, in analogy sometimes it reminds me very high quality linen fabric. Sometimes it felt coarse, but after several hours it began to be more liquid I think. Is its sound accurate? I’m not sure yet, but I think its sound is of very high caliber and taste.

Some glitches, sometimes DoP does not work and it makes very loud pop. I coundn’t find the right routine to make it sure to work yet. (It’s partly because I use digital volume with my old mac mini and Audirvana. DSD works better with 005’s internal volume while pcm is better with Audirvana’s noise shaped volume. So switching between DSD/pcm is quite complex and some danger there. Right now I’m attenuating about -20db with 10k resister divider and further -6~-20db with digital volume. A passive attenuator might work in my case.) Another glitch is that some tracks pop with DPLL level 1, it is not consistant and the same track is sometimes ok and sometimes it pops, I don’t understand why...

So it will be a long way to put everything right, but I think it’s promising.

@jc4659 

I turn off and on DoP mode everytime before playing a DSD file (especially when it lost locks to the files in Audirvana). I'm not sure if it guarantees working but it looks raise the chances.

@melm

I think track pops have reduced by adding ground connection to my mac mini which was lost when its power was changed to an LFP battery (formerly used with ADI2 pro). Not sure if they vanished completely but after that pops didn’t bother me. Amanero is more delicate than other USB interfaces?

Re DoP, I think 004 didn’t have an option to turn off DoP, while 005 has. DoP glitches continue, but I think turning off and on DoP function again solve it in most cases. Another glitch with DoP/Audrivana is it produces a loud pop (quite high fq, while the not working DoP pop is low) in only right channel when playing DSD file is stopped and Audirvana loses its grab of the audio device. I think these glitches with DoP due to Amanero, maybe that is why it is not so commercially popular in spite of its reputation of great sound?
 

Regarding 005’s tone and texture, IMO being not silky is by no way its shortcoming. Its sound is completely opposite to ostensibility or intended splendor in spite that it is extremely detailed. I think this is the most interesting point in 005’s performence, but its tone is changing (so I don’t worry about its coarseness much) and it’s too early to be determined about its tone.

I think I found the condition of DoP glitch, setting Audirvana volume option to ’software only’ seems to turn the DoP mode of 005 off. Changing volume control method between pcm and dsd requires some care.

PS/Edited: I tried again but I couldn't reproduce it! My applogize for confusions. @jc4659 Would you try yourself and report your result with Audirvana volume options and DoP when 005 arrives? 

@jc4659

In my setup I don’t have DoP 1.1 so I choose DoP 1.0 (my audirvana is old 1.5.x and my mac for audio is an old mini 09 running snow leopard). I upsample pcm only by 2^x factors. (My audirvana seems to recognize the dac’s max sample rate as 768k, I don’t know why, maybe because the former dac’s max was 768k? So I use the custom upsample rates option.)

When I used ADI-2 pro I prefered converting to pcm and using audirvana(izotope)’s software volume than feeding dsd to dac via DoP (I think that was because ADI-2 pro itself converted DSD to pcm internally). And at that time I prefered 0db boost and turning up the main volume. But that’s another story... 

I'll wait for your impression and operation result, thank you!

@bill_k ​You’re right. The problem comes from that I prefer izotope’s noise shaped volume over 005’s internal volume for pcm, while I prefer 005’s native dsd (DoP for mac) playing over converting to pcm regarding dsd. Analog volume control might be the solution...

My 005 has arrived this afternoon. Ordered on 29th Nov., was dispatched on 4th Dec. So I think Shenzhenaudio is not slow. Shipping was via DHL and very smooth.

It replaced my RME ADI-2 pro, and today I could barely recognize it is not a faulty unit. At least I think its channel separation is better than ADI-2 pro (in spite that it was used in balanced phone mode which was clearly better than its normal line level outputs). Finding the best setup will take time, but I think it is promising...