DAC shoot out .

[Alrainbow]

I recently did a dac shoot out , and aside from the obvious winner there was something that I never heard before.

The speakers were Nora baby grand ver 111.
Amps were the vtl deluxe 300 monoblocks tube.

aesthetix
Romulus DAC / CD player (similar to Pandora DAC but with CD drive).
MSB platinum plus

Bricasti M1

Source Mac laptop running audirvana USB connection.

Red book and hirez used .

Ps audio power plant .

Now given the msb is more money then any of them I do understand how it blew them out of the water in every way.

But the one thing I never heard before was the sound was constantly changing on the formulas sac.

As the msb gave us that we are there sound , the Romulus did to . But the band was not there . It was almost like there where freq,s that played very well and others that did not. It did the samething on all music. I have heard before dacs that could not keep the image stable , but this did the same thing with the sounds of the music . And it was not just the imaging that changed it was the quality of reproduction.

How is this possible and has anyone hear ever heard something like this. I am not a reviewer but did really want to compare my MSB stack to others . Help please .

Al. D

 

[jap]

How many hours did the Romulas have on it(they need at least 400 hours of burn-in)?
Did it have stock tubes?
Were the DACs connected directly to amps?

FYI, Aesthetix will be introducing Signature versions of the Romulas/Panadora at CES.

 

[Alrainbow]

The dac is a demo and I cannot say how many hours it had on it.yes the dacs were connected directly to the amps. Yes stock tubes. The dac did warm up the vocals a little . It made one particular female vocal better . But it also skewed the sound of all the others both mail and female . But more to the point did you ever hear a dac perform like that. The guy that brought the dac was there to demo it. He seemed well versed in the dac and all,of the equipment that was there. Nice guy to not a jerk. So do you have an answer ?

 

[jap]

Everything you describe sounds like a unit without enough hours of break-in and stock tubes.

If your nice guy still has the unit, plug it directly into the wall with something other than the stock PC and
let it go for at least another 50 hours before you compare it again.

If there's a pair of NOS 12AX7s available, I'd plug those in.

Since it a tube component, I'd also put it some type of isolation base.

 

[Alrainbow]

Thanks .

Al. D