Dac ?

[FloridaBoy]

Is the Cardas Lightning a burgundy color RCA terminated cable?

[decooney]

Originally Posted by FloridaBoy

Is the Cardas Lightning a burgundy color RCA terminated cable?

No, it's Teal/Blue, the 18.5awg NOS lightning version. Worth every penny so far.

Spoke to Brian @ Cardas and he mentioned this Lightening good too. He rides bikes too a bit so we chat everyone once in a while. i.e. Mine is not the 15.5 awg Burgundy version which is also very nice and sought after. As I understand is both the 15.5/18.5 versions sound good, very close. I saw they they also made a 20awg non-lightning version in a darkish Burgundy color. Can't figure out what that was other than a lower cost version. As for today, I left my player/DAC/amp/pre on all night. I'm noticing piano and strings sounds even more natural than I recall, BUT I am leaving my amps on for longer lately. I guess that could skew the results a bit I wonder compared to normal 1-2hr warmup listening. Still need a few weeks to know for sure and re-evaluating when firing it up cold listening after 1hr to be a little more objective. Some of my other Cary gear sounded different end of day compared to first few hours so Im open to the idea that could have something else to do with what I'm hearing. It does sound a tad smoother this morning for whatever reason.


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OTHER DACS:

MHDT (Orchid)? You had the Havanah, we touched on Orchid before. By chance did you ever get a chance to demo the Orchid or find any good comparisons to the Pagoda... I read the Orchid may be a tad more laid back, Pagoda a little more forward and detailed. I now see each in the range all sound a little different in the MHDT line.
'

[FloridaBoy]

MHDT (Orchid)? You had the Havanah, we touched on Orchid before. By chance did you ever get a chance to demo the Orchid or find any good comparisons to the Pagoda... I read the Orchid may be a tad more laid back, Pagoda a little more forward and detailed. I now see each in the range all sound a little different in the MHDT line.

No, because you have to buy and try the Orchid. The MHDT DAC's need to have the coupling caps changed. The stock ones can easily be bettered but they are not bad. The Ukrainian DAC appeared to have better parts and, I hope, implementation. So I went with it. I first saw it about a year ago. I've had the Havana for 8 years or so and still like it...but...Audio Nervosa won.
The MHDT DAC's are still very good and priced right.

My Klipsch Heresy III's are very 'alive' so a little laid back is good for me but perhaps not with your speakers. It's all about component matching. I would never recommend a DAC for that reason.

I had the deep burgundy Cardas cable but it was bettered by one from Chimera Labs in my rig. The owner seems to have retired but I'm still using the wire. FWIW, I recently got 2 PS Audio AC3 power cords $100 each used. They bettered what I was using on the DAC and made a difference on the subwoofer. I was surprised about the subwoofer improvement.

[decooney]

Originally Posted by FloridaBoy

MHDT (Orchid)? You had the Havanah, we touched on Orchid before. By chance did you ever get a chance to demo the Orchid or find any good comparisons to the Pagoda... I read the Orchid may be a tad more laid back, Pagoda a little more forward and detailed. I now see each in the range all sound a little different in the MHDT line.

No, because you have to buy and try the Orchid. The MHDT DAC's need to have the coupling caps changed. The stock ones can easily be bettered but they are not bad. The Ukrainian DAC appeared to have better parts and, I hope, implementation. So I went with it. I first saw it about a year ago. I've had the Havana for 8 years or so and still like it...but...Audio Nervosa won.
The MHDT DAC's are still very good and priced right.

My Klipsch Heresy III's are very 'alive' so a little laid back is good for me but perhaps not with your speakers. It's all about component matching. I would never recommend a DAC for that reason.

I had the deep burgundy Cardas cable but it was bettered by one from Chimera Labs in my rig. The owner seems to have retired but I'm still using the wire. FWIW, I recently got 2 PS Audio AC3 power cords $100 each used. They bettered what I was using on the DAC and made a difference on the subwoofer. I was surprised about the subwoofer improvement.

FB,
I spoke to some folks who work closely with modifying MHDT DACS. I'm now a bit more reserved about trying one and even more interested in your discovery and findings with the Ukraine DAC and others. Apparently the Orchid and Pagoda sound "very similar", "detailed", and "not as smooth" as others I'm more familiar with. In discovery, as soon as it gets to realizing I'll end up wanting to "replace caps, tubes, resistors" among other things, I'm becoming more of a proponent to move on to something more settled out of the box instead. Can't wait til you get it and start burn-in.

[FloridaBoy]

Originally Posted by decooney

FB,
I spoke to some folks who work closely with modifying MHDT DACS. I'm now a bit more reserved about trying one and even more interested in your discovery and findings with the Ukraine DAC and others. Apparently the Orchid and Pagoda sound "very similar", "detailed", and "not as smooth" as others I'm more familiar with. In discovery, as soon as it gets to realizing I'll end up wanting to "replace caps, tubes, resistors" among other things, I'm becoming more of a proponent to move on to something more settled out of the box instead. Can't wait til you get it and start burn-in.

You can spend a lot of $$$ installing parts in the MHDT DAC's. I changed the coupling caps. I had a MHDT Paradisea and I bought the Havana w/o hearing it.

Posts from a UK forum.

Abbas is after music not sounds. Johno, if that's what you need Abbas's products and schematics do play music. No ads here, only personal experience.

I have been using Abbas's tube DAC 2.0SE and his tube usb-spdif convertor for over six months. The pair replaced my previous dac system worth over $6000. That's how good they are. Highly musical. FYI.

I bought the DAC 2.0 not the SE. The SE has Black Gate and Audio Note Kasai capacitors.

[decooney]

Originally Posted by FloridaBoy

I bought the DAC 2.0 not the SE. The SE has Black Gate and Audio Note Kasai capacitors.

FB,
I have a few questions for you. I looked back at the link you sent. It shows the DAC 2.1, not the 2.0 if that makes a difference to ya. Not sure if the link is deferring to a different eBay ad since your item is sold. A few questions... I read a member on another forum bought a non-oversampling R2R ladder DAC and it would not play streaming content from his player with Spotify Premium or Tidal through the DAC. Since I stream a lot too, wanna make sure I understand the functions of what a NOS 24/96 DAC can/cannot do. Thx ahead for clarifying.

With your custom ordered DAC:

-Is it effectively a 24bit/96khz non-oversampling DAC then?

-Can it play streamed content - so what happens if you plug in a streamer to this DAC that streams 384khz sampling rate, does it not play sound? Or, does it pass through and down sample somehow and still play?

[FloridaBoy]

Originally Posted by decooney

FB,
I have a few questions for you. I looked back at the link you sent. It shows the DAC 2.1, not the 2.0 if that makes a difference to ya. Not sure if the link is deferring to a different eBay ad since your item is sold. A few questions... I read a member on another forum bought a non-oversampling R2R ladder DAC and it would not play streaming content from his player with Spotify Premium or Tidal through the DAC. Since I stream a lot too, wanna make sure I understand the functions of what a NOS 24/96 DAC can/cannot do. Thx ahead for clarifying.

With your custom ordered DAC:

-Is it effectively a 24bit/96khz non-oversampling DAC then? Yes . From the description: DAC 2.1 features: 1. Tube DEM clock ( E180F, EAA91, soviet tubes provided )
2. CS8414 SPDIF receiver 24/96

Can it play streamed content - so what happens if you plug in a streamer to this DAC that streams 384khz sampling rate, does it not play sound? Or, does it pass through and down sample somehow and still play?

It's the DAC 2.1. not 2.0. Do you stream through a USB connection? If so, you need the SPDIF-USB unit. See link. There are two versions.

"httphttps://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?...sb&_sacat=0://"]httphttps://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?...sb&_sacat=0://

I stream through a TASCAM CD player with an iPod dock that is connected to the DAC so I don't need the SPDIF-USB converter.

When the new DAC arrives you're welcome to try my Havana.

[decooney]

Originally Posted by FloridaBoy

It's the DAC 2.1. ...
I stream through a TASCAM CD player with an iPod dock that is connected to the DAC so I don't need the SPDIF-USB converter. When the new DAC arrives you're welcome to try my Havana.

Cool, and thanks for the offer. May need to check it out. Def wanna see what you think about yours when it arrives. Early on somehow I thought you were getting the kit unit with boards only, but then later realized looking back its the fully encased unit. Nice. As I try to break in my current unit and cable, I can see why folks own multiple DACs now.bIt truly is like ice cream and 31 different flavors.

Once you get it up and going for a while I'll be curious to hear from you if the Abbas units will have the open/clear/detailed transparent type sound or the more "velvet" sound with a tad less (or softer) type of transparency. I think I'm leaning towards something in between, with a little of both characteristics. Getting there is going to trail-and-error as i can see now. Thx.

BTW: as for your question, I stream from my local ip/network to an Arcam rPlay streamer S/PDIF (coax) out with coax in to my current Arcam irDAC-II DAC with RCA interconnect into my Cary SLP98L Tube preamp/6SN7 tubes --> big Cary tube amp.

..

[FloridaBoy]

Originally Posted by decooney

Cool, and thanks for the offer. May need to check it out. Def wanna see what you think about yours when it arrives. Early on somehow I thought you were getting the kit unit with boards only, but then later realized looking back its the fully encased unit. Nice. As I try to break in my current unit and cable, I can see why folks own multiple DACs now.bIt truly is like ice cream and 31 different flavors.

Once you get it up and going for a while I'll be curious to hear from you if the Abbas units will have the open/clear/detailed transparent type sound or the more "velvet" sound with a tad less (or softer) type of transparency. I think I'm leaning towards something in between, with a little of both characteristics. Getting there is going to trail-and-error as i can see now. Thx.

BTW: as for your question, I stream from my local ip/network to an Arcam rPlay streamer S/PDIF (coax) out with coax in to my current Arcam irDAC-II DAC with RCA interconnect into my Cary SLP98L Tube preamp/6SN7 tubes --> big Cary tube amp.
..

You don't need the spdif-usb unit. I saw a comment on a forum about it and it was

I hope the DAC is musical and has no digital artifacts.

[decooney]

Originally Posted by FloridaBoy

You don't need the spdif-usb unit. I saw a comment on a forum about it and it was

Do you mean the 24/96 Abbas 2.1 unit can pass through higher resolution 384khz streamed content on its own?