Paradisea Dac

My paradisea was very dependent on tubes- even within "identical" tubes. I recieved half a dozen tubes from Andy @ VTS including 2 Western Electric and an RCA that he thought should have been really good. Some no name tube (re branded) won. I question the low voltage that it uses on the tubes, possibly not biased up enough or too low on the plate curve. I preferred the DIYParadise USB Monica (used with 18v smps, not battery) to the Paradisea. However my Benchmark DAC1 USB handily bests both-better bass, more detail and low level resolution. Run it balanced if you can, I use a Bent tvc, preferring it to the onboard volume or active pre. Somehow (filter?)it tames the sterility that seems to be the major complaint of the Benchmark.

I can see how Jax2 felt the highs were unbearable. I am a sucker for high resolution on my electrostats and found that the highs were tamable when I found the correct power cord and conditioner (running springs/cardas to jpd digital pc)- avoiding silver interconnects helped too. What really set it in stone was when I added some bybee gg speaker tails. Laugh if you want, but those things turned that high end glare into pinpoint resolution with plenty of space around the notes and more importantly micro dynamic resolution with lovely decay (nice PRaT). Prior to the bybee's I could have agreed with Jax2 and was on the fence.