Had a Kora Hermes tubed dac since 2001. Still do. And love the sound it produces.
As a believer in power supply overkill and unique tubed analogue output stages in superior sound it hit the right ballance. It has two decent torroidal transformers one big one for the analogue stage and a smaller one for the digital stage also has a 2 volt and 5volt switch on back to help it fit in with a vast array of preamps.
I now have a Lampizator Lite 7 with pcm 356 and dsd 256.
I may upgrade it to big 7 mk2 status.
Imo these dacs leave behind everything in reference sound.
I could never buy a dac without tubes and certain aspects as many of these players, they are all cut from the same cloth imo.
When I got my Kora Hermes theyre were very few dacs available.
A few names I remember were MSB, Meitner, Metronome, and to a lesser " also ran extent"
Theta, and possibly a few others.
But not like today where everyone has a flavor of the month!
As a believer in power supply overkill and unique tubed analogue output stages in superior sound it hit the right ballance. It has two decent torroidal transformers one big one for the analogue stage and a smaller one for the digital stage also has a 2 volt and 5volt switch on back to help it fit in with a vast array of preamps.
I now have a Lampizator Lite 7 with pcm 356 and dsd 256.
I may upgrade it to big 7 mk2 status.
Imo these dacs leave behind everything in reference sound.
I could never buy a dac without tubes and certain aspects as many of these players, they are all cut from the same cloth imo.
When I got my Kora Hermes theyre were very few dacs available.
A few names I remember were MSB, Meitner, Metronome, and to a lesser " also ran extent"
Theta, and possibly a few others.
But not like today where everyone has a flavor of the month!