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End Game Digital (2023)

My post was partially tongue in cheek (due to the fact that digital is always moving, despite having had truly remarkable for a long time now). However the Organik DAC is the best I’ve ever heard (via solos and Kudos 707s)… not my own system sadly.

As for Konfig, I’ve not used that or the Linn account for ages because my system is all set and I haven’t had the need, I’ll have a look later. I’ve a feeling they don’t want people using leftover boards from upgrades to make home brew Renew products… hence the reason for an online account (serial number/board ID checking).
 
Purité Audio said:
I understand it must be difficult if you have read and believed manufacturers marketing, the only way to be convinced is to perform an unsighted ( level matched if necessary) unsighted comparison for yourself.
@AlexS we do ‘sell’ the Tambaqui but I always tell potential customers that it will not improve their sound quality if they already use a transparent dac.
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Keith,

Do you think this is Bruno Putzeys’ view as well? Serious question, not trying to catch you out, I’d be really interested to know what his opinion is on this.
 
I had the very same conversation with Bruno when Mola bought out their Kaluga monoblocs, very tricky even for ‘honest’ manufacturers such as Bruno and Daniel Weiss, I think they would stress, features, aesthetic as well as the measured performance.
Keith
 
We should get him here and ask him. Could you do the introductions? :)

Edited to add; I’d ask him why he would go to the bother of creating an FPGA based DAC when he could have just used an off the shelf DAC chip.
 
Alex S said:
dCS Bartok and above, Chord Dave w/wo M-Scaler… Did owners of either compare the other? What else is there?
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I owned the DAVE with M Scaler for a year, and also spent a week with a Bartok.

I can see why some people like the Bartok, but for me it epitomises the hifi vs music debate. The Bartok was pure hifi. A big, detailed, smooth sound, but utterly, utterly boring. Colourless, lacking dynamics, I kept it for a week but knew within 2 minutes that it would go back to the shop.

I kept the DAVE/M Scaler for about a year. To be fair, the M Scaler makes it worse. It certainly makes a difference, but if a skeletal, bleached, hyper-detailed image is the goal, then the M Scaler is one way to achieve it. On its own, the DAVE sounds okay, but still a bit thin, lean, and has a weird way with transients such as cymbols, which sound over-emphasised and splashy.

I have been through many DACs over the last few years in addition to the ones above - including the Ayre QX5, Chord TT2, Mytek Manhattan, Nagra Tube DAC, and numerous others. I have settled on a Bricasti M3, which is one of the "cheaper" DACs I have owned, but it seems to do everything right and has none of the irritating peculiarities of sound typical of most "high end" DACs.
 
Meitner MA-3 compares very favourably with both the DAVE & the Bartok (I haven't heard the latest Apex revision though). You can also go super expensive with Ed Meitner's EMM Lab products which are highly rated.
 
I've gone through 7 or 8 different DACs in the last few years. Thought I was happy with a vintage Wadia X-32 (and now have 3 of them) in comparison to a vintage Micromega housebrick Duo. But recently bought a dCS Delius cheaply, which sometimes I love and sometimes seems too false (like everything is pushed forward; rather than only some things imaging, everything images). It only bothers me sometimes, other times I love it). So, jury still out - will try it for a few more weeks and then swap back to Wadia.

I also recently passed up a dCS Vivaldi DAC for only CHF7k - even though it was v1, quite easily upgradeable to v2, and from there Apex...so I should have been able to get my money back...but CHF7k on a single hifi component?!

Finally I also have an Audial 5 kit here I really need to build the BOM for - as the generally regarded best implementation of a 1541A I really owe it to myself to listen to it...and if it wasn't for the Wadia X-32 barging onto the scene I probably would have done so already.

Lots of choices.

Richard
 
Purité Audio said:
I understand it must be difficult if you have read and believed manufacturers marketing, the only way to be convinced is to perform an unsighted ( level matched if necessary) unsighted comparison for yourself.
@AlexS we do ‘sell’ the Tambaqui but I always tell potential customers that it will not improve their sound quality if they already use a transparent dac.
Keith
Click to expand...
I think many, if not most of us, take manufacturers blurb with a pinch of salt. We’re also able to do the same with hifi dealers, whether those enthusing over the latest “improvement” or those who have adopted a belief system with the opposite effect. It’s all a question of taking a balanced view; not something that those at the extremes are capable of understanding! After all we all like to think we are in the inner quartile of those extremes.
 
Alex S said:
dCS Bartok and above, Chord Dave w/wo M-Scaler… Did owners of either compare the other? What else is there?
Click to expand...
No, and I really should have had a listen to dcs.

I did have a listen to a Chord Dave with Jacobs power supply but there was not enough benefit for the money to upgrade from my m scaler/TT2. My route into the Chord way of doing things was through the Qutest which had the desirable quality of stopping me worrying about why the sound wasn’t quite right. From there I bought an ex dem TT2 as much for the pre amp and volume control by my chair as hope in there being much difference in sound quality. I did a level matched blind comparison between Qutest and TT2 and for my ears there was a small difference and I could repeatedly pick out which was which although I preferred one on some tracks and the other on other tracks. Comparison is the thief of joy and the TT2 gave me a volume control at my finger tips. The m scaler (that thing that purite crusader calls an expensive placebo :D) takes the whole thing to different level and miles away from my wall paper stripping Benchmark DAC 1 HDR. Great natural sound which takes me into, rather than distracts from, the music. I think Rob Watts is on to something with his approach, such a shame he is subjected to such online abuse from those who have long lost the ability to take a balanced view.

So I really should have had a listen to a dcs but I am more than happy with where I’ve ended up.
 
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