Review DB Audiolabs Tranquility DAC

Category: Digital

Tranquility USB DAC
Well, I have been using my tranquility usb dac for over a year now and I just wanted to post how pleased I am with it. My set up has the dac paired with a mac mini with my music files on a firewire connected external hard drive. The mac is headless and I use an ipod touch to control everything. Redwine Audio Signature 30.2 provides the amplification into OHM Walsh speakers.
To my ears, this is a great sounding combination that is incredibly user friendly to use. I have used itunes for the majority of listening time but recently I started experimenting with Pure Music and Fidelia. Both sound slightly better than Itunes to my ears, and the latter is becoming my favorite with its great interface. As others have posted, the tranquility dac has a very liquid midrange and excellent sweet top end. Soundstage in my system is deep, wide, and layered. From time to time, I have compared the dac directly to my Marantz SA8260 SACD player and I always prefer the tranquility dac. It also replaced an MN24 tube dac which I also thought was a very good sweet sounding dac.
My experience with DB Audiolabs has been very good. I was one of the early purchasers of the dac and Eric was quick to respond to my questions about the dac and how best to set it up for optimal sound. Recently, one of the channels on the dac went out of balance and I had to send the dac back to DB Audiolabs for service. I have to say they were very responsive. I received instructions from Eric about shipping on the same day I emailed him about the problem. The dac was returned to me within a week, repaired and making great music once again. I have been tempted to trade up to the SE version, but for now, I am happy with what I hear via the standard dac. I keep thinking how much better can it get when it seems that it is excellent now? Anyway for the near future, I am focused on expanding my music collection and trying out the ever expanding array of MAC player software that seems to be coming out each day. What a great time for computer audio.