John
Based on your comments below, I'd like your views on an idea of mine please.
Fusion forwarded this to me... Some close-up internal pictures...
I have no idea who this company is...
http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.hoer-wege.de/audiolab_mdac.htm
Interesting...
John
I've been holding off buying an M-DAC because of the following concerns:
- having to ship it to / from you for updates and fixes;
- it seeming to be rather unreliable with the crystal, sticking relay and broken connector problems (I know you quoted only 1% failure rate but I believe that that was relatively soon after the product was on the market);
- the delay of 6 months before the PSU upgrade (MPAX) will be available.
But I'm wondering whether the above mentioned German retailer - or another - might be able to help. Perhaps you could give them schematics of upgrades that you envision and they could do the soldering, freeing you to concentrate on things like MAMP and other new products.
Personally I'd be willing to pay 200 or 300 or maybe even more for the right upgrades. I'm interested in the following:
1- the 'Sovereign' upgrade;
2- if possible, replacing the crystal with one from a more reliable manufacturer;
3- an improved PSU (this custom version from Red Wine Audio looks interesting though very expensive:
http://redwineaudio.com/components/black_lightning )
4- if you think it makes sense then possibly the replacing of key capacitors as per the above German retailer's mod.;
5- replacing the relay with one that is more reliable;
6- anything that might improve SQ of the headphone output.
Given that your plan is to launch various Lakewest products that rely heavily on the M-DAC, it would seem sensible to have some partner who can do some of the grunt work of upgrading the M-DAC.
What do you think?