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Considering A New Streaming DAC (Pick 1 of 4)

Hi Folks, The four under consideration are Weiss 501/502, Mola Mola Tambaqui, Aurender A20, and Bricasti M1. Anyone of these will feed a signal into a Backert Labs Rhumba Extreme preamp before going to a Pass XA 30.8 and out to a pair of Audio Note AN/K's ("mildly effecient" at 90 db). The K's are in a fairly large room (26x12). I currently have a Lampizator Amber 4 (bal w/vc) and do like how it sounds in this system, but wish to at least explore a one box option. Although I do stream (N100H) most of my "front end" time is spent either with a Macinstosh MR88 digital tuner or an Audio Note level 2 CD transport. I'm interested about folks preferences or experiences with any of these four DAC's taking into account my front end usage and existing system. I've also looked at the possibility of keeping my streamer and upgrading the tube DAC in the form of Totaldac or BAT Rex. Any thoughts on this are welcome.

scottya118
willgolf
933 posts
 

All of your choices are great.  I would just add one more...Lumin X-1.  In performance, it was super close to my Lampi Pacific and that says a lot.  

Are you able to demo any of the units?  Your choices are so good that you would be happy with any of them.  Good Luick.

scottya118 OP
137 posts
 

Can't demo but hoping someone can identify 1 more than other 3 as "tube like." Not holding out hope on that. I'll check out that Lumin. Thanks.

metaldetektor
148 posts
 

Depends on your goals obviously, but for my taste I’d go for either the Weiss or the Tambaqui in that system. At the risk of generalizing a bit re Pass and AN, for balance I’d want the most transparent and high res sources, to balance out the personality of the Pass/AN.

Tubed TD may be too much of a good thing in that specific system but YMMV (new TD comes with a return policy so try it if you’re really curious)

 

yyzsantabarbara
4,568 posts
 

I have a Lumin X1 streamer with fibre. I would use the DAC's mentioned in the OPs choices with fibre converted to USB. I find it interesting that GTT (distributor of Mola Mola) used to demo the Tambaqui with an external streamer and not the built-in Ethernet streamer. 

My long sold KRELL K-300i integrated (a great unit) had a built-in Ethernet streamer and it was not as good as using fibre converted to USB.

The built-in Ethernet is convenient, but my 3rd choice after fibre, USB, and then Ethernet.

 

 

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