musician aquarius r2r dac any good?

@viethluu 

My experience of listening to B&W speakers were that they were a tad on the bright side. Is it possible to borrow an Aquarius to test it at your home? IMO, the Aquarius might work better with speakers and gears that are more laid back in sound. 

Based on the sound you are looking for you might want to consider Audiobyte HydraVox. It is transparent, very detailed, and on the drier side, so I think it should be a very good match to your 805. 

@viethluu with R2R DACs, you will enjoy music more and not worry so much about the source. Seem like you are set on Aquarius, it is an excellent R2R to start with for sure. Do give Lab12 DAC1, Rockna Wavelight, and Aqua La Scala a listen too if you are able too. Speaking of La Scala, you could actually get one now quite below the RRP, ask your dealer about it. 

I had Musician Pegasus and of course when I wanted to upgrade one of the DACs I considered was Musician Aquarius. 

The funny thing about Aquarius, yes, soundstage was better, separation was better, everything sounded more coherent but it did not feel as musical as Pegasus. To my ears the sound was brighter but somehow didn't encourage toe-tapping like Aquarius. I guess it sounded more uh....analytical?

Anyway I tried many other R2R DACs, including the top-end XLR Rockna Wavedream and a few upsampling D/S DACs for good measures. And I settled on Lab12 Dac1 Reference. It's slightly cheaper than Aquarius and very barebone in features in that only accepts signal to 192 Khz, but the sound is glorious. Seriously, to my ears, it sounded better than Wavedream. It is certainly a good candidate for end-game DAC. If you have a local dealer you really should give this an audition. One other DAC that really impressed me at this price range was TEAC UD-701N, organic and non-fatiguing as well. You might want to consider that if you wanted a more complete package of streamer and pre-amp. 

@arafiq  the Aquarius is basically a clone of Denafrips Terminator. Musician is an original brand created by the company that develops and manufactures Denafrips stuff in China, that is why Musician and Denafrips’ stuff look nearly identical. Denafrips is just a brand created by a distributor company in Singapore.

@viethluu  I have not heard the Bartok, Puccini, or Vivaldi yet because they are also outside my budget. But reading online about the DCS stuff, yes, I think a higher end R2R DAC should give you what you are looking for.

@daledeee1 I was curious to test Lampizator tube DACs, but have not gotten around to it yet because the local dealer was quite out of the way. The simple reason that we keep hearing Denafrips and Musician being recommended is simply because they had been aggressive in providing review units to reviewers and media. And it helps also the DACs really punch above their price point. 

I mean, yes, there are better DACs than Musician Aquarius and Denafrips Terminator Plus (disclaimer: have not heard Terminator Plus yet), but most of them are prohibitively expensive like Mola Mola Tambaqui and MSB Discrete, though some of them have quietly dropped their price realizing the competition. Aqua La Scala MKII is actually cheaper than Terminator Plus in my city. These other brands are definitely more niche and depend more on word of mouth for marketing, but if you are fortunate enough to have local dealers definitely should give them a listen. I recently replaced my Pegasus with Lab12 Reference Dac1 and I could not be happier. 

@charles1dad I've heard Wavedream and La Scala MKII first during my search. I was more or less set on getting La Scala then I've heard the Lab12. The Lab12 sounded more detailed and musical than La Scala at less than half the price, it was a no brainer decision for me. (pro tip: insist on the coaxial input for Lab12, the USB implementation on it was sadly noticeably inferior).

I actually got around to listen to MSB Discrete earlier this week while checking out Vitus amplifiers. It was amazingly detailed and organic sounding as well, but I struggle to think how it was better than the Lab12. So I guess my next DAC upgrade if ever would probably cost $20000 upwards. 

For most DACs it seems that I2s or Coaxial are always better than direct USB.

I have been using this with my former Pegasus and current Lab 12. It’s the cheapest and fuss free way to provide I2s and Coaxial from a desktop.

https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Interface-Coaxial-Optical-Audio/dp/B08HN3VSF8/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?crid=2XEK9R0XJT293&keywords=douk+audio+mini+xmos&qid=1661048048&sprefix=douk+audio+mini+xmos%2Caps%2C366&sr=8-2#

@soix I am using Windows 11 and the Douk is plug and play. I connected the Douk to my Pegasus using cheap AmazonBasics HDMI cable and it worked like a charm. The Douk will appear as XMos XS1-U8 on your Windows so make sure you select it as the system output. Roon infuriatingly does not use it by default and I have to manually enable it again after each Windows update. 

@tjag I used the I2s with my Pegasus and I had to say the difference with the USB input was minimal if any, but I still used it anyway because with the Douk I could actually adjust the volume in Windows. Without it I had to reach to my amplifier volume knob. With my Lab12 Dac1, the difference between with USB and Coaxial is more significant, probably the coaxial implementation is more well thought out.