So I’m currently online window shopping (as you do) and stumbled upon this picture:
Never heard of DartZeel before, looks interesting though! Anyone know something about them?
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French manufacturer with list prices high enough there are Chinese copies.
I haven’t heard any of them though.
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I want to say they’re swiss but I can’t recall either lol (they are expensive though), generally their goal is to try and sound like a tube amp, and in some aspects it captures the excellent presentation of texture and liquidity, although their tonality can be somewhat hit or miss. They are generally sweeter leaning amps overall. Pretty great stuff in the right system, although that being said, I’m honestly more partial to their power amps with a different preamp, since I don’t know why, but I like them more paired with different preamps than dart pres.
They are interesting amps, I like their separates more than integrated, I haven’t heard anything like their 458 monos, but insane price there, but they are def doing something right. They really focus on trying to capture the time domain side of tube amps rather than the tonality which is something more mfg need to do lol (so things like microdynamics, texture, timbre, and some spatial qualities are executed incredibly well, and their slightly more rich and sweet nature is pleasing and offers a level of being forgiving ish while still providing solid technicalities)
I will say that I didn’t really think their more entry level (for the brand) offerings were as compelling as their much higher end ones, basically they make more sense in the high end than their starting options imo. Although the NHB-108 is pretty great and likely the only “cheaper” dart I might actually entertain
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Your probably right. There one of those brands I’m aware of, but only tangentially.
I feel like a surprising amount of higher end solid state amps come from that general area lol. Dart, FMA, soulution, ch precision, nagra, goldmund, and so on. The swiss are kinda solid state fans lol
Tube focused mfg like tobian systems, also nagra, and swissonor (which I only remember because of the name + looks) also exist but really it seem like a lot of the best solid state end up coming out of switzerland
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Thank you both!
I checked and they are indeed Swiss.
@M0N also is there anything you haven’t heard? lol
I don’t think I’ve seen you recommend them before, though. Is it because there are generally better options out there?
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Darts have been around for awhile, very prominent high end mfg, and end up at every larger show and there’s plenty of dealers around (or there were), so I’ve gotten plenty of chances to hear them. It’s not like one of those smaller more one man band brands, those are a lot harder to hear
Likely because there’s seldom a chance to, since not many people here are looking at 20k+ speaker amps, and nobody has asked about dart on here before lol. It’s also something that’s pretty system dependent from what I know and I don’t have much experience seeing what they play nicely with or not
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I was reading a thread that has lasted over 2 years about Musetech Dacs 004 and now 005. Searched for them on SA and nothing comes up? Has anyone have first hand knowledge of these Chinese dacs?
Well if nothing else that 005 does have a beautiful interior.
http://www.mu-sound.com/DA005-detail.html
Since it won’t let the forum autogen images:
Edit to add:
Not the price I was expecting on the 004. The mini looks interesting too.
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Oh, it does!! Thick shielding between the boards, nice clean and neat layout. Even color coordinated PCB’s. That’s Holo Audio quality internals!!
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I’ve to say it gets boring/strange with those DAC’s…
take 2 9038PRO + usual good power supply + mundorf caps + ‘nice’ layout + glossy alu chassis… Good measurements, done another ‘good’ DAC to choose from…
Where is all the love gone, for doing something non-standard audio engineering?
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I know what you mean.
Some very solid components in there and some genuine care and expense taken in the power distribution and shielding. Obviously that is all meaningless if it doesn’t sound as good as it ought to for the price. I do see that unlike the kind of products I feel you might mean (lol) there is very little in the way of measurebating material on the product page. Small mercies? I do agree that it does aesthetically look very, very generic!
Personally I don’t think I would want to bother with the 004 models, they seem pretty old now and are much less developed in the internal layout as far as is discernable on the website. So the 005 does on a brief look seem like an actual new product by a niche boutique manufacturer.
There are a lot of smaller brands around that never get taken up by the US or global sites and hobbyists. I find lots of little ones in the EU when I go on searches. The Netherlands has a whole cottage industry of dacs going on! The problem is the lack of reviews and the lack of knowledgable user reviews on which to form a tentative opinion. (I’ve spent more time than I should wondering what the Musical Fidelity gear sounds like for example!)
It’s always cool to find a new one to look at even if I never get to satisfy my curiosity.
Eh, I think electronics is in a bit of a dull stage in general at the moment. Computer tech is getting very mature and there are lots of best practices that everyone and their dog follows. All the chassis look the same. Mostly the internals look the same. It needs some new tech to shake things up. That or a nice baroque and outrageous period like the 60s and 70s to give us some funky looking things! Totally agree with you there.
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Eh?
It mostly is in the “it barely works most of the time”-state.
Specs are all over the place, mostly not followed thanks to pay walls EVERYWHERE.
In comparison to the PCs I started on in the 90s everything is very very standardised and samey. Hah! I guess these things are all relative 
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That’s a good looking internals on that piece of kit.
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Anyone have any experience with esoteric dacs? Currious abour adding them to my demo list. Met a dealer at canjam happy to set up a demo day but they arent super close to me so currious if people think something like a n05xd (or whatever the bottom tier one is called) is worthwhile at all
Worth listening to.
The big knock on Esoteric was there proclivity at releasing new TOTL components every couple of years, pissed a lot of buyers off. Though they were bought relatively “recently”, I think they are owned indirectly by Gibson now, so that might take the release pressure off.
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Moving this here since the question is going to get slightly off topic.
The blunted sound is what I am trying to avoid specifically. TBH I don’t realy mind holo’s sound sig over all if they just added a bit more energy to it. Im not super concerned about treble extension so long as there is still some energy and vividness in the mix. TBH Ive been liking the m1se with the aic a fair amount, but its fairly lacking in spacial presentation (layering is really what I want to be better. Its not bad, I just like having even more of it even if maybe slightly exaggerated). The relaxed term is really what has me slightly concerned though. I haven’t really been that concerned about it in the past, but pretty much everything I demoed and liked a lot this weekend (+ the m1se synergy being better than p6p even ignoring technicalities) has been much more neutral or even slightly forward (not hyper agro though) with its energy. This was especially apparent with my preference for the lp6 over the p6p tbh.
Ive seen your takes on mojo vs totaldac a few times before and seen you say that you expect dual and X SE to be on fairly similar tiers (a tier slightly above m1se and even Weiss IIRC?). Would the reclocker coming with the dual push it past? I have been thinking if I go the dual I can always keep the reclocker and sell the dac if I don’t like it but im not sure. The other side of the coin obviously is the 45 day mojo in-home demo.
IDK, I think im more of thinking out loud than realy asking any questions. Just seriously not sure which way I should go since I’d realy like to just demo the two before hand but that’s just not possible.
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And this is really what I personally like about totaldac and think they do very well, in a sort of understated way. It’s not in your face with it, but it’s pretty apparent underneath
Yeah the bricasti have only been ok for the price in space, not stand out
I honestly think that both your preferences and synergy needs tilt toward the more forward and energetic side of things, and because of that I bet there’s safer bets than either the mojo or the totaldac, they will be warmer relaxed pairings with something like an aic, but not to the point for me where it becomes a problem, but if you do want that amp to lean cleaner I wouldn’t consider them
I mean probably, all I can really go off of is the single mk2 and evo, so not apples to apples. Honestly I’d probably put them on similar levels I don’t know about above, perhaps above the Weiss, but not sure if I’d say it’s above an m1se
Guess that’s true
True. You could get similar with the totaldac eating the shipping (I’d assume same with the mojo?), it would just have to be a new single mk2 instead of a dual
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I am starting to come to the conclusion that the honest truth is that I just don’t have enough experience to really know what I want. I am getting kind of tempted (again) to drop down a tier to the 3-5k range and just roll through several dacs to try and learn a bit more. Like I am loving the M1SE but Idk if that’s because I like more forward and extended with the AIC or if its just because ive been gimping the hell out of the amp for month and the step up is big enough to overcome preference. You ask me what I think I want and I come up with totaldac-esque sound description, but then my most memorable chain was using the MA3 and I liked the LP6 (better extended with more space) over the much denser and darker P6P with basically every IEM I tried.
Demos certainly help (and I think I will try and focus on getting a few more), but the stuff I want to hear seems to be pretty darn hard to come so it ends up being stuff I cant realy use as a frame of reference. Plus, I need to be realistic for myself and not just dive super high into dacs and actually keep some money back for DDC/cables/probably better power/etc (and that sweet sweet shang SR that is calling my name, lol)
Yah, sorry. You have said the same thing a few times now. “Can only guestimate but shouldn’t be worlds”.
Tbh, I am not super interested in totaldac at new pricing. They just seem to take a massive hit in value and be kinda hard to sell, so its less interesting to me than say, mojo.