Review on Linear Tube Audio Aero DAC

Hey brbrock,

I know that LTA uses high quality internal parts in all their products. If you want precisely to know what companies parts they use just call Nicholas at LTA and he will give you all that information.

Teajay

I'm curious to hear from owners of this LTA Aero Dac, if any of you....

1.  Are using CD Transports?

2.  Which transports are you using and have you compared various transport with the Aero Dac?

3.  Which input connection have you been using with the Aero?  Have you noticed any difference in sound between the various input connections?

Thank you and best wishes to you,

Don

The LTA Aero arrived today.  Unfortunately, the Merason DAC 1 MkII has been held up in customs only two hours from me for a week now.

The LTA Aero was extremely well-packaged and super easy to set up.  It sounds good right out of the gate.  Very musical and in no way irritating.  I will give it some time before making more specific observations.

Stereophile review by HR was very positive too however Atkinson tested it and had issues wherein

..."The Linear Tube Audio Aero's measured performance is paradoxical. As I pointed out in my Richard Heyser Memorial lecture at the 131st Audio Engineering Society Convention in 2011, people tend to like the sound of nonoversampling DACs that dispense with the usual reconstruction filter, perhaps due to their accurate time-domain behavior. But the price paid for this benefit is the presence of a large number of aliased products in the audioband with high-level, high-frequency audio data. And although the Aero's distortion signature is dominated by the subjectively benign second harmonic, this probably won't be of concern, at least from the balanced outputs. I was puzzled by the fact that this harmonic was so much higher from the unbalanced outputs, though this discrepancy is mentioned in the Aero's specifications.—John Atkinson 

@mitch2 

Curious to hear your impressions after burn-in of both Merason and LTA. My CD transport is optimized for AES/EBU and sounds much better than SPDIF on my Merason Dac1 MKII. 

Wig

Thanks for the heads up @wig 

The LTA Aero has been burning in for a couple of days and, after a frustrating week of dealing with customs, the Merason is scheduled to be delivered this afternoon.  By running the USB output from my Sonore Signature Rendu SE Optical into a Singxer DDC, I have a variety of outputs I can simultaneously use from the DDC to feed the DACs I am comparing, so it will be easy to try the Merason with AES/EBU.

@mitch2

Awesome and fun times ahead.

Wig 😊

@mitch2 Congrats on the new LTA Aero!  I'm really looking forward to hearing your thoughts and comments about how it sounds compared to the other dacs you have experience with!

I have one on order, probable about 3 weeks out before receiving though.

When talking to the very fine folks at LTA, they gave me the impression that they didn't expect the Aero to sound any different no matter which input you use on their dac.  Although, I wonder if some transports or digital sources themselves may be better optimized via their certain output connections?

I'm very happy to hear that it was packed very well and shipped very safely! Also glad to hear it's sounding good right out of the box.  I can only imagine that their "pre"-burn in process prior to shipment only helps in that matter!

Best wishes,

Don

@wig Can you remind which transport you are using?  

Also, is it common for various cd transport to have one digital output to be more optimized than the other outputs on their machine?

I apologize if the above sounds like a stupid question... I've been a vinyl guy for roughly 50 years and am just now trying to optimize my digital system, so I guess I've been living under a rock for a while, lol.

Thank you and best wishes to you all,

Don

@no_regrets

I have a Pro Ject RS2T CD Transport and it also has I2S.

Wig

@wig 

Awesome!  I hear Charles1Dad rave about the RS2T CD Transport quite often and from what I've read from reviewers, it is quite a nice transport.

From what I understand, it currently is quite difficult to get one at this time though. So, right now I'm looking at one of the Jay's Audio transports or maybe the CEC TL-2N dual belt drive transport. I'm just in the very beginning stages right now, so I am remaining very open to ideas 

Best wishes,

Don

From what I understand, it currently is quite difficult to get one at this time though. So, right now I'm looking at one of the Jay's Audio transports or maybe the CEC TL-2N dual belt drive transport. I'm just in the very beginning stages right now, so I am remaining very open to ideas

@no_regrets There have been several here who’ve had problems with the Pro-Ject transport, and when there’s an excellent option from Jay’s I see no reason to deal with that.  The new TEAC transport has gotten excellent reviews as well but no idea of its reliability.  Personally I’d go with Jay’s no question.  Hope this helps. 

@soix 

Hello and thank you for your post!

Can you or maybe others from this fine community help me understand something, as like I had mentioned, I am still trying to learn and understand the digital side of things?

I'm still trying to understand what the Aero Dac can and cannot accept as far as digital signals and what that actually means to me when searching for a possible new and upgraded transport to use.

So a thought was to find a CD/SACD all in one unit to use as the transport into the Aero via coax connections.  I wasn't sure if the Aero would be able to maximize the SACD sound quality though, so I wrote LTA about my question and they responded saying... "The Aero can accept PCM signals from a transport up to 24/192k but cannot decode SACD or DSD. I'm not sure most transports will output SACD anyway."

So, I'm thinking if I bought an all in one box CD/SACD player I could utilize its internal SACD dac via the analog outputs directly into my line stage and then just output the redbook signal via coax into the Aero. Hopefully thinking the all in one CD/SACD player would be a better transport than just using my vintage Rotel 955AX and also gaining SACD capability, albeit having to use it's internal dac for that medium.

The other thing that I noticed is that with both the Jay's Audio CDT3 MK3 and also with the CEC TL-2N is that on their back panel they have a switch at can upsample redbook cd to 176.4khz  (and via remote on the Jay's Audio CDT2 MK3).

So, I am wondering if because the Aero Dac can accept up to 24/192khz would that make my normal redbook cd's sound better than just having a transport that only output 44khz?  And if so, would I be better off getting either one of the Jay's or CEC truly dedicated transports and forgetting all about SACD as I would have to start that collection from scratch?

Any thoughts?

Thank you for sharing!

Best wishes,

Don

I just bought the Teac VRDS 701t Transport and it is a great machine. I’m using it with a LAB 12 DAC 1 Reference and it is a great sounding combo.

Herb Reichert used the LTA with the 701t and here’s the link

https://www.stereophile.com/content/gramophone-dreams-88-teac-vrds-701t-cd-transport

So, I'm thinking if I bought an all in one box CD/SACD player I could utilize its internal SACD dac via the analog outputs directly into my line stage and then just output the redbook signal via coax into the Aero.

@no_regrets Unless SACDs are a large portion of your library I think this approach could make sense.  If that’s the case maybe get a nice Marantz player for SACDs and run its digital out to a DDC like a Denafrips Hermes into the LTA — the DDC will turn the Marantz into a much better transport.  Just one thought. 

I've had the Aero for about a month, and it is more than I could have hoped for. At first, I was a little concerned about the limitations, but I only listen to PCM, and it sounds great with a USB cable. It's almost unbelievable how good this thing is. Beautiful harmonics, pristine images, deep, tuneful bass, and that Berning clarity.

@lancelock 

Congrats on the new Aero Dac!  I'm excited to hear that you are loving it!

I'd love to know what you are using for a transport?

Best wishes,

Don

@oddiofyl 

Thank you for sharing the link to the Teac review.  It was great reading about this transport especially seeing that it was used into the LTA Aero Dac!

Best wishes,

Don

@soix  Thank you for your post!  As always, I truly appreciate your help 

@teajay  - Thanks for bringing the Linear Tube Audio Aero DAC to our attention.  I have just started the process of comparing five different DACs I have here in the $4K to $10K price range, with the Aero being the least expensive.  I am also using a lower priced Benchmark DAC3 HGC to calibrate the others against a DAC that was designed around measuring well.  My goal is not to select a "best" but rather to compare traits and narrow the field to two or three that I enjoy most, as well as  figuring out which sonic traits are most desirable to me.  All five of them clearly sound different, even though two of them are from the same manufacturer.  Another observation I can share now is that, however this shakes out, you are absolutely correct about the LTA Aero performing well above its price range.

@mitch2

I would be curious to hear your impressions on how the LTA compare to Merason in regards to creating ambiance and spatial space. This is why I chose Merason over my $7K+ Tube SW1X III+ DHT R2R Dac; Merason matched it in every area but the airy details just added another level of dimensionality and realness...

Wig 🎶🎵

@mitch2 

I just got my Merason DAC1 mk2 so I'm interested in the comparison with the LTA Aero as well. 

For those Dacs utilizing 6SN7 tubes, I highly recommend Linlai Elite 6SN7s which IMHO, beats most NOS tubes...

Wig