Sweet, Ben said he’d put in Eichmann KLE Perfect Harmony RCA jacks which is what he’s switching to with the next gen high-end MA DACs. Any RCA sockets should be a better fit for my Audience cables than the Furutech. Similar low-mass technology to the Furutech, but solid silver alloy vs silver/rhodium plated copper.
Ben recommends the nano crystal core choke upgrade. Since return shipping and labor are already going to be covered, the out the door cost would be $1500. Ben provided many reason they are superior to the AC. I’ve also gone back and read about the upgrade previously shared😆
From what I heard of the DAC, I have every intention of this being my end game DAC. With the limited time I had with the DAC, I would appreciate some more texture, air, speed, depth in ss, and micro details/dynamics. Hell, it just makes sense to do it now.
A touch more speed would also be beneficial. With improvements in several areas, albeit minior, worth the cost? The minor details start costing more the higher you get up.
Re: the cost for the evo. It has more chokes but i dont know if it is all the same price for those and the X. If you are sending the unit back to him for the rca repair it would save shipping.
Edit: i didnt see your above post.
I feel if you talk to him and push him a bit then maybe he may drop his price a little. Say that my article got you interested and youre looking for info.
More fleshy with the NC? Not like meaty thick fleshy. But more fleshed out with nuance and micro layers then yes. It adds micro to the already full and powerful macro presentation. Tbh it feels a tiny bit less fleshy or meaty with the NC. I noted this to Ben and there isnt much of a clear reasoning for it. He speculates that the faster cores keep the bass more in line and it doesnt overshoot. Kind of like staying in the lines of a coloring book.
Also the KLEs are a favorite here. TBH im not the biggest furutech person so i wish i had yours.
Currently playing w/ borrowed MOJO Mystique X DAC, @Souldriver, my initial opinion based on 2 channel use of just a few hours and 2 completely different amplifiers in my smaller room and still using USB is thus…Ben did an incredible job w/ his build of this unit and whatever the complete parts combination is in it. I’ll leave it to you to again fully describe the internal build. IMO the extra expense, time and effort i have put into tube rolling my Lampizator Baltic3 could have been saved by simply purchasing this DAC and calling it a day.
The sound stage presentation is different from the last unit you loaned me, the more forward Oval presentation of the previous unit is not present on this version. This unit gives me a front / 2nd row seating presentation w/ excellent/exceptional left/right width and a stage height that’s maybe 8”inches to a foot above my eye level. It’s perfect
Detail retrieval is superb w/ zero digital artifacts, or any metallic flavor whatsoever making its way into the presented sound character.
I’m currently enjoying rolling some amplifiers w/ it in my smaller room and once i return from my next trip out to Albuquerque i’ll move it to the larger room, let it warm up for a week and attempt to discern any appreciable difference between SPIDIF and USB feed
Thank you again for your generosity and allowing me the chance to learn about and experience first hand these wonderful pieces of equipment
As I’m listening and getting familiar with the MK 394II I’ve been having issues flare up with my AES connection once again. I’m looking for some recommendations on a front end change and I’ve been thinking about two well regarded solutions…also impressions on the 394II to come, I promise, it’s sitting as a draft as I go…
Current front end: PC (via Shunyata Venom usb) > Alpha USB DDC (via Snake River boomslang AES) > Mojo Mystique EVO Pro '21 > MK 394II
I was considering these options:
Upgrade to an EMM NS1 (this assumes that my Alpha USB > Mojo is the primary issue with some type of ground loop and not the boomslang cable itself). In testing, I found the error to present itself with other cheaper aes cables too
Upgrade to a Optical/Ultra rendu (nicer psu) + FTA Calisto cable (safe bet is that I can move to usb primary if needed)
Considering total cost would probably be comparable-ish just looking to see if anyone has tried these out
EDIT: please fell free to move this to a General thread if it makes more sense
I would just note that most do not prefer the usb on Mojo dacs, i do not think that will improve things.
Have you looked into streamers or a Pi solution that would improve upon the pc? Or maybe the alpha dd is just not fit for too mich longer on this world.
Thanks, I think this is the type of feedback that would be helpful in deciding in a direction to go
I will likely shift the Alpha to my speaker set up that has an aes input if I do go the EMM NS1 route for my headphone chain. Not a single issue in the speaker chain with it when testing.
I do have a few Pis I use around the house for simple endpoints/usb output but I think at this point they would just bottleneck my main headphone chain. I would look into a streamer with an aes output so I can still use the boomslang into my mojo. Worse case scenario I need to get a different aes cable if that is causing the issue
A Pi2AES with its AES output would rival or perhaps even exceed the output going from your PC to the Alpha. You can find them used for $300 give or take. They’ve got quality clocking and an exceptional AES output. Not saying you need to stop there but it would give you a good idea of what 1) getting off of the PC would gain you and 2) give yo some insigght and flexibility to determine your “next step”
When I had my B4B (with the 2021 boards) in the old chassis, I was using a dCS Bridge, really good but it simply would not work on anything higher than 16/44 AES into the Mojo.
The reason I’m saying this is because I don’t think you’ll have a 100% certainty of being issue free.
I use the Alpha USB via AES into my Pro and it’s been flawless, always. So whatever is going on IMO is a device by device situation and not due to just one thing, but more of a confluence of factors.
While I did not have issues with the EMM NS1 on my Evo Basic DAC, for some reason, the EMM NS1 gets pretty weird pairing with my current Evo B4B 21. My Evo Basic was a lot different from the typical Evo Basic because it was one of the very early iterations.
^I talked about how the EMM NS1 pair with my current Evo B4B 21 and if yo are planning to pair it with the Snake River boomslang AES, you may have to downsample to 44.1kHz. Which is weird because when I use the Silver Sonic AES cable, I can’t play 44.1kHz and had to upsample (forgot which was the minimum). But I ended up upsample it to 176.4 kHz after reading Ben blog article on his opinion on where to upsample. The EMM NS1 is a really nice streamer and the performance was quite the jump from my previous entry level streamer, but it can be kind of difficult pairing with the 2021 Evo Dacs which is something you are probably trying to avoid.
Below picture is my current setup from the EMM NS1 > Silver Sonic AES > Evo B4B 21
Some streamers that kinda caught my eye recently with reviews is the Innuos PULSAR. Its coming out with more outputs besides USB I heard and some people are impress with it. If you could get one demo at home, that could be a good option. There is also the Innous Pulse with all the outputs with Coaxial/Optical SPDIF, AES/EBU, and USB. Sonore streamers may be a great options as well and it could work well if you already have a DDC so you can still use your snake river AES cable. I think it would be best to demo some streamers at home to make sure they pair nicely with your Evo Pro.
