I love vinyl for its sound; dislike it for its relative lack of convenience. Looking to emulate the sound of vinyl in my digital set up and build a new system from scratch with this goal in mind.
Of course, it's ultimately a matter of total system synergy, but isolating the DAC as a single component, which DAC most lends itself to a vinyl-esque sound?
Some options I am looking at based on reputation:
- Mola Mola Tambaqui
- Playback Designs MPD-8
- Lampizator Horizon
Thank you!
a worthy goal. one i share. but so many facets to this idea. the issue is the word 'most'. 'most' presumes someone has really searched among dac alternatives, and then it also depends on the level of vinyl playback one is using. and the aspects of vinyl playback that are most significant.
if you are looking for vinyl sounding as 'listenability without digital fatigue' then maybe choosing the best dac you can afford with a tube output circuit might work. especially where you can roll tubes to taste. other dacs convert everything to dsd, which can knock the edge off the digital to a certain degree, improving listenability. the issue here is 'sameness'. any time the source gets 'processed' to remove or alter stuff, then the essence of the music is somewhat reduced in the name of listenability. and you might not realize it until you compare it to a dac that takes a different approach and does not do that.
but if by sounding like vinyl you mean without digital artifacts and the more live sounding and refined sounding, where differences between recordings and formats are exposed, but without fatigue, which goes beyond the listenability factor, now you have narrowed the field a great deal. since higher level vinyl starts with way more information, not sameness. and greater believability. you can have a digital source that sounds like vinyl in all ways. where you don't realize it's not vinyl. even with top level vinyl in your system.
and remember the server and dac<->server interface have a vote too. dacs can only be judged in the context of the whole digital pathway, and the level of synergy between the dac and server.
comes down to your vinyl reference, and expectations. there are many pretty good sounding dacs and servers that do a decent job at this. how serious and committed to it are you? do you really want the 'most'?
for the record, my suggestion is the Wadax Reference dac, plus Wadax Reference Server, and the Akasa optical interface as "most" vinyl sounding in all the best senses of that phrase. just my opinion. below the Wadax investment level there are a number of good alternatives depending on sonic priorities.
