musician aquarius r2r dac any good?

@viethluu Thanks for the heads up.  If the Mercury can provide performance closer to the Phoenix at a price closer to the SU-6 I’m all in.  Hey, it’s nice being able to look forward to adding a DDC in the future knowing you’re gonna get a significant performance boost.  Not many things in audio electronics are such a sure lock. 

Got it.  So how far are your speakers pulled out from the front wall?

@auroravengeance Did you have to do anything to get the Douk to work with the Pegasus?  I have both but I get no sound when trying to use the Douk into the Pegasus’ i2S input.  Thanks for any tips. 

I am very nervous though. This is the first time I use r2r dac. I always use delta sigma DAC in my system, so I dont know what change I will introduce to my overall synergy.

I wouldn’t worry.  I think you’re in for a real treat. 

I have the Musician Pegasus in my HeadFi rig and like it a lot. Depends totally on what sound characteristics you’re looking for, but I’d recommend reading the review  of the Aquarius on stereonews.net to see if it might be a good fit.  It’s one of his favorite and highest-rated DACs for whatever that’s worth. All I can say is he also reviewed my Pegasus and I completely agree with his assessment. Hope this helps, and best of luck.

How far are your speakers pulled out from the wall?  And if you’re looking for more transparency you might think about replacing the Macs as they’re probably the bottleneck there.  Just IMHO. 

I have to say, problem #3 is probably specific to certain equipment. Why not work with iFi and Musician to see if there is a fix? Plus, if I’m hearing you right, the solution is simply turn the Aquarius off and on and then it works. Is that really so hard? While the Terminator Plus May be a bit better (soundnews.net rated the Terminator a 94 and the Aquarius  93) it’s a MUCH more expensive unit, and even more so if you need to add the Gaia. While I’d love to have a Terminator Plus too, for the price difference I think I could live with turning the Aquarius off and on, and that’s IF this is an issue with other equipment at all and IF that issue can’t be fixed with firmware update, etc.). Just some thoughts/perspective FWIW.

Again, for perspective, the Terminator + costs $8850, and if you add the GAIA it ups the total cost to $11,300.  The Aquarius costs like $3135 all in.  

@anzaanimalclinic Ah crap — thank you for the correction.  My bad.  Prices now look like $6405 and $1772, respectively.  Still, it’s more than double the price of the Aquarius so the principle holds.  A much more apt comparison would be with the Venus ll. 

Excellent. 

Interesting. 

@viethluu Thanks for the update! Yeah, another 50 hours or so might make a difference. One area I was thinking you might see a noted improvement is in a larger 3D soundstage as this is an area I find R2R DACs can have an advantage (along with tonality) over delta-sigma DACs. Anyway, thanks again for the update and look forward to hearing more.

@viethluu I kinda hate to bring this up because it involves spending more $$$, but just saw this review and the Musician Phoenix DDC seems to take the Aquarius (and Pegasus) to a much higher level of performance. Just fyi…

https://soundnews.net/accessories/level-up-your-dac-musician-phoenix-ddc-review/

Sorry.  I’m still planning on picking up a Singxer SU-6 for my Pegasus because that also provides nice benefits, and as much as I’d love to add the Phoenix it’s just not in the budget for me.