So for DACs, I recently bought the Mojo Mystique V3 for a little under $4K (though I’ve seen it under $3.5K for the single-ended only version) and I’ve written a little bit of early impressions here in the forum. (I’ll likely write more at some point.)
Other brands I was looking at purchasing were Rockna (the Wavelight is about $3.5K used), Meitner (MA-1 V2 prices are swingier, but in this similar ballpark), and totaldac (the d1-core and d1-dual are sort of in this price bracket used, but don’t come up often).
Thanks so much, had a brief look at the brands and added them all to my search list. Will research them a bit more the next few days. Something to keep me busy
Would love that. I always enjoy reading other people’s thoughts and impressions on gear. Also have been somewhat eyeing this dac for a little while now so it’s extra-interesting.
Do share anyway! Maybe I’m lucky and I’ll find it on the used market.
O-ho-ho. I’m well connected Haha, well, a friend of mine is going to visit her family in America soon. The amp is being sent to her family home and she’ll take it with her back to Germany.
(I am kind of regretting this, I admit. I’m saving hundreds of euro in taxes, but it means I need to practice my patience for a few weeks longer.)
Nice, thanks! That’s a pretty good deal. That dac is also one that’s been floating around in the back of my mind and your rec makes me certain I’m gonna get it some point. (Besides, it looks so pretty! Just for that alone it’s worth it!)
I’m glad you bring that up as I’ve kind of shied away from that site. The few times I clicked on it the sellers never had reviews. Do you have insight on this? Is it not as common to leave reviews on this site? Or was it just unlucky that the sellers didn’t have reviews and I should still watch out for that?
Also, do I see correctly that hifishark includes the private ads from this site, but not from the dealers? That’s such a valuable discovery!
Since it hasn’t been mentioned yet, I’ll recommend Lampizator. They should be relatively easy to get in the EU (located in Poland) and there is lots of good feedback out there for that particular pairing as well, LTA even sales (or did sale) a bundle with the mz3 and amber3 and have demoed their stuff at shows with lampi dacs. For your price point you’d want to either go with a used amber3 or go for a amber4 direct from lampi unless you get lucky and find a 4 secondhand, though it’s still so new it’s unlikely. I’d personally go for A4 since the upgrades look substantial and worth it.
I have a Mojo Mystique X, which probably isn’t readily available in Europe. But at CanJam Chicago, LTA had 2 R2R DACs that should be easy for you to get: an MHDT Orchid connected to the MZ3 and a Denafrips Pontus II connected to the Z10E. Both were enjoyable, and I bought an MZ3 based on my listening experience there.
(Interesting brands as well: LinneberG (Telemann or Satie), Sonnet, Ayon Audio).
Denafrips and Chord wasn’t impressed, but others love it. As M0N and others say, you need to listen before, they all sound slightly/heavy diffferent (very difficult to archive)!
I decided for Sigma Delta, but in next years will go for R2R as second DAC.
Yes, I saw that.
I find it really very primitively made and outrageous in the price tag.
It’s just Sokri’s Dac module with some unimpressive capacitors running on a tube basis.
So you can almost do it yourself.
Buy the Soekris board,buy Vcaps capacitors and find someone to maybe solder the tube board,connect the whole thing to an Amanero board and transformer,done.
The components are quite cheap to get, it has to be said.
I don’t know what the sound is like, but the others probably sound better from a technical point of view alone.
No, I want you to get it so I can hear from someone I read more often and feel I know better than other forum platform rando’s and passionate existing owners. You know what I’m talking about I see you over there. Do it for the team c’mon
It’s like every owner of one is an immediate fan and there are no real reviews anywhere, right? I am tempted though. Price isn’t terrible, a lot of options available in building and plenty of class A fully balanced power.
Exactly. No I thought about it before getting the Ferrum Stack - its the whole DIY thing and who’s going to fix it thing that got me. AKA not sure I can afford to own it long term if it needed something. But yeah everyone seems to really dig it with both the Sus and tc.
Haha, well, a friend of mine is going to visit her family in America soon. The amp is being sent to her family home and she’ll take it with her back to Germany.
