Could be me, could be the fact the power company has been doing work, could be my wife doing laundry when I’m trying to listen.
My point was it’s hard to know what’s contributing to what your hearing on any given day.
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I had a nice conversation with Mark Schneider, the LTA CEO today and purchased one of their LTA Aero DACs. Should see it in about 3 weeks as they are waiting on cases.
They clearly put a lot of thought and effort into the design, and there is innovation wrt the input stage as well as the Berning-modeled output stage. He shared a lot of details and I wish I could have recorded the conversation since I cannot remember it all. They are aware of similarities with the Mojo DACs and are interested to hear about my comparisons.
He acknowledged the Aero DAC sounds better after a 2-hour warm-up, and the sound continues to improve over a couple of days. He indicated turning the unit on/off is may be harder on the tubes than simply leaving it turned on. Also, the ZOTL circuit only uses about 1/3 of the tube’s power and the 12SN7 tubes they sourced are not dreadfully expensive.
Amidst the hype, I look forward to trying this new DAC.
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@mitch , congratulations and looking to hear about your experiences and adventure with your new LTA DAC, I listened to a prototype at CAF and am very much interested in seeing how the production model is taken by the overall community. The price point was well below what I expected for the amount of effort they seemed to put into it, I am keeping fingers crossed it performs VERY well despite its “low/somewhat reasonable “ MSRP 
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Agree with @NickMimi we sat and listened together and it was an impressive presentation, as much as you can get out of a listen at a show.
I will say that the 12SN7 tubes are relatively inexpensive, I kept a pair of 1940’s JAN RCA that sounded glorious in the LTA preamp, the midrange was the best I’ve ever heard. Ultimately I went with a pair of Ken Rad 6SN7 which had the best full range balance in the pre, but one nice aspect of the DAC is being able to roll it precicely to your taste.
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@NickMimi @dB_Cooper @mitch i would be interested in how it compares to the Mojo line and what the differences are.
While the DACs seem to be a bit different, I do know Ben did upgrades to LTA amps in the past. I get the impression there is a mutual relationship there, or at least there was one at some point. I get the feeling (but i admit i never had an ear on it) they may be from the same or similar vein.
The price is also compelling. I thought there were going to be more versions or at least a ~$10k higher end dac in the pipeline.
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You aren’t far off, there were two prototypes on display at CAF 2022 one of which was 3x the size of the Aero. Both were naked the Aero was the unit downstairs in the headphone hall with their usual suspects of amps. While the big prototype DAC was upstairs in a full speaker set up.
Last year, I recall the Aero was the only DAC they had in both types of set ups, the more expensive prototype may have been scrapped or put on hold?
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You are correct about them having a level of mutual respect, if short of emulation, as Mr. Schneider implied in our telephone conversation that the folks at LTA have known Benjamin and his work for quite a while.
I won’t be selling either Mojo Audio DAC before I am sure the Aero can offer at least the same level of enjoyment.
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I look forward to your impressions. I always want to grab something LTA but the time and fit never seem to match up.
How is the optical input on Mystique DACs? I just happened to see an upgraded V3 on USAM for $2700, but it only has USB and optical inputs. I recall from other people’s experiences that USB is lackluster and AES is usually the best with these DACs.
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I saw it. That configuration is a crime. I’m sure you can send it to Ben for him to add the right inputs but now between shipping and his work I’m sure you’re going to be looking at $500 on top of the current selling price. You can probably save some $ if he ships it directly to Ben.
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Ive seen a few v3s come and go lately. It is probably worth it to wait for a spdif version or an Evo
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This one has Z chips and is from TMR. As long as you dont need balanced out it seems pretty good.
I also heard from many hear if you call The Music Room they tend to let you haggle on price.
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I emailed Ben late last night, asking his opinion on the two V3s available, and he said that the one from TMR was the better choice because “it has not been messed with.” He said they could update the chokes, but would not touch op-amps or anything else on the circuit boards.
But then he followed up with a pitch for a Mystique Y. He’s got a demo unit he’d let go for $3000. I’m seriously considering it, but I have some questions for him/the board here. This is his pitch for the Y:
Our new Mystique Y DAC has all of our latest upgrades and costs only a bit more than those used Mystique v3 DACs.
It has the same AD1865 DAC chip as your Mystique v2, which some people prefer over the AD1862 DAC chips used in our Mystique v3, EVO, and X, because it is a bit more lively and dynamic sounding.
The one limitation is that our Mystique Y has only a USB input.
Compared to our Mystique v3 our new Mystique Y has the following upgrades:
- Custom fully shielded toroidal power transformer.
- Zero-recovery ultrafast SiC Schottky diodes.
- Staccato class A discrete op amps.
- Upgraded XMOS USB input module.
- No wires in the analog signal path…all connectors are mounted directly to the circuit board.
- Lundahl ferrous core chokes in the analog power supplies (easily upgraded to amorphous or nano crystal core).
The above upgrades we’ve made over the past 8 years are quite significant IMO.
With all of those upgrades given the choice between a Mystique v3 and our new Mystique Y I would most certainly prefer to own a Mystique Y.
And that’s not even considering that a 7-year-old Mystique v3 only has a few more years before some of the parts start to degrade in performance.
And those Mystique v3s are all out of warranty whereas a new Mystique Y will come with a 5-year transferrable warranty.
Now for the good news…
We are having a holiday sale on our Mystique Y starting at only $3,499.
And now for the really good news…
I have a demo Mystique Y that will be arriving soon that I could let you have for only $3,000.
At that price I would certainly prefer to own a new Mystique Y over an older Mystique v3.
Obviously, he’s trying to make a sale and he makes some compelling arguments, plus, I would like to actually support him directly.
The problem is that this would be for the 2-channel system in my listening room which is currently fed by a Pi2AES. My Roon core is up in my office and feeds a Matrix X-SPIDF 2 interface, which I use to feed the Mystique V2 SE with coaxial.
My only option for a USB-only DAC is directly from the Roon core, which would require moving that back downstairs to the listening room. I really don’t like this idea as the computer is very noisy, PLUS, I’ve never found a USB input that sounded better than AES or coaxial. I wish the Pi2AES had a USB-out on it.
What do you guys think? I’m looking at the two reviews of the Y that Ben posted on the Mojo site now to see more about them. God, I wish that thing had coax. And an 1862.
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If you dont have USB then you dont have it. It is simple. I have not heard the Y but USB tends to not be great on Mojos, and in general needs special treatment to sound it’s best.
I would either wait and save a little more for a nicely packaged evo, or look at the v3 with the z chips. I think the z chips give a lot of harmonic depth and may be why many evos sounded great (since he apparently put these in many v3 and evo units before knowing what they were). They can also be taken out and used in other mojos if needed.
I do not know how much the components degrade over time. He may have something there but i dont know if it is a push to the Y either. Maybe someone else can chime in.
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The difference with the Y seems to be that he’s not using the std. JL Labs USB board he’s used on all the previous DACs, including the EVO Pro. Other vendors use this same JL Labs board, Lampi does in their Pacific and feedback there is that USB is great. Lamp however does extensive modifications to the JL Labs USB input though.
I’m sure that’s why Ben specifically calls out the switch of the USB input. Given the offer, I’d probably lean towards the Y but like @Souldriver make sure you’ll be feeding it a CLEAN USB input.
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I’m really leaning towards the Y as I continue to think about it.
Anyone have any recommended Roon-ready streaming endpoints that have a USB output on it?
EDIT: Oh shit, wait…I can just use the USB output on the Raspberry Pi itself! I have an iFi USB purifier, plus a DC Purifier on the power cable already. Shit, that might work just fine…I’ve got a very nice USB cable. No Callisto, but it’s a HUGE step up from the others I used. It’s just feeding the X-SPDIF 2 and it was a very noticeable improvement when connected.
HMMMMMMMMMM…
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@dB_Cooper you were one of the few that had ears on the v2, evo, and a few Xs.
My concern is (and i have not heard it) that the Y may be more towards the modern X Mojo sound which is a bit different. The v2 that Kerls has sounded much more like how most describe their evo, at least to my memory.
My worry is a Y may step away from the sound he us trying to upgrade and be more different vs a step up. But ill wait for you to add flavor.
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From the internal pictures I’ve seen the way it’s used in Mojo’s is it just converts USB to SPDIF, since there doesn’t appear to be any attempt to clean up the incoming clock inside the Mojo’s it’s all going to how clean the clock on the board is. Which will depend on what it’s sitting near and how clean it’s supply is.
The JL Sounds board is considered to be the best of the 3rd party options, but there are a lot of ways to use it, most are not going to use it to convert to SPDIF, and the clocks can be replaced among other options.
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I would be curious to hear any impressions on the perceived differences between the V2 and the X.
I also wonder if I need something a little more forward. I’d be putting the Y in my 2-channel system, moving my modded/upgraded GDA-600 back up to my office, and selling the V2 back to @dB_Cooper . I’ve noticed that with the GDA-600, my Cornwall IVs have more top-end bite and detail than they did with the V2 in that system. That’s something that’s always been lacking in the system and tube rolling has helped to an extent, but ultimately has still left me wanting (especially compared to how the Focal Clear handle highs). Granted, the GDA-600 is an 8x OS DAC using a PCM63, so not directly comparable, but still. Something brighter/more forward seems to work better with the speaker systems.
I guess it all depends on what you mean by the “modern X Mojo sound,” but the Y might be more in line with what my speakers need to get closer to what I’m expecting to hear…
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Going from memory but the V2 and the one @kerls has specifically having no USB reminded me of a OG Yggy which would have been the closest match to DAC I’d previously had. It lacked the refinement of the newer more upmarket Mojo’s but it certainly had the Mojo house sound, a bit more up front and plenty of slam. I think it would be helped plenty with a good PC as well and a good match for a chain that had plenty of detail already. The X, the X SE and the EVO are league ahead in micro detail and the highs are certainly better represented. For speakers though what the newer Mojo’s will do is give a better stage immersion.
I was going to point you my the sub 1k streamer thread here @kerls Kerls. For very cheap money, a basic Pi4 with the Ian Canada noise shield had and an ifi iPower X 5V power supply will go a long way for next to nothing. The Pi4 USB is better, the Ian Canada hat will clean things up a lot and for less that $300 you’ll have a nice USB streaming solution. There are also TONS of cheap streamers that show up on the market often. So you won’t be short of options.
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