The box that Angstrom Stella Headphone MK2 amp that you used during testing comes in seems as if it would cost more than most of the headphone amps I’ve ever owned. Que bella.
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It’s funny to think, it was in July of 2021 where I was deciding like, “should I wait for m0n’s DAC roundup or should I buy this Exogal now?” and back then, I was even on a completely different forum.
I didn’t end up waiting, lol, but congrats on the write-up! Even if you weren’t as invested in this one, it’s really exciting for the comparison to finally see the light of day! 
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Well…shoot. I sure picked the wrong horse in this race!! 
@M0N thank you very much for all the thought and time put into this much more accessible segment of DACs! Nuanced and well considered insights as always!
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god dammit @M0N now i really want to hear a SW1X audio design dac… maybe a dac III (special?) could be a good alternative to the lampi baltic 3 I was thinking on instead.
This complicates things 
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I mean, my DAC didn’t even make it into the comparison, so for all I know, mine wouldn’t have faired any better, lol. (Though I’m pretty happy with the sound and I paid less than $1.5k, so I feel pretty okay.)
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The thread that started it all for me! lol
Thanks for taking the time to do the write-up. 
Eyeing for that lampi or aqua in the future. 
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@M0N Thanks for the write up, it was a great read! I had a question about a small detail I ran across in the post. You say you tested the LTA ultralinear with tap box. What is the tap box?
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It’s become one of my most used due to the mysphere 3.1 lol
Nah, it’s a good dac, I wouldn’t have included it otherwise, you just have to like what it offers. I personally haven’t really enjoyed a lot of metrum dacs, and while I like the sonnet a bit more, it’s still not my cup of tea. It has a fair amount of valuable qualities that you don’t get in other dacs, it’s just not something I personally go for. Same with the tt2 tbh. The only dac in there that I could feasibly say I didn’t enjoy as much was the tII. It’s something that I respect and can see who would enjoy it, but it’s just not something I’d buy myself. I do think it places pretty well in the rankings for certain aspects, it’s just fairly unbalanced and leans too far for my tastes imo
That would be fairly above baltic tier imo
I do personally like the exogal more than the morpheus but that’s more preference than based of technical ability.
So firstly, I didn’t realize it was actually still produced and sold new lol, so it wasn’t on my radar actually
I would have added the exogal, but I wanted to hard lock it at 10 dacs only and the terminator took it’s spot. Not because I liked it more, but because I felt I wasted my money on it and included it because I didn’t want it to be an entire waste lol. But honestly I might add 2 more dacs to balance it out to 12 later on, although I’d have to wait to grab an exogal
A speaker tap box, basically a converter to use headphones on speaker amps. This tap box shows an 8 ohm load to the speaker, and lowers the level a bit to make it more suitable for higher sensitivity headphones. It does decrease sq a bit but overall the benefits for more sensitive things are worth it, but with more demanding headphones I just run directly off the taps with no attenuation or impedance stuff
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So Exogal and…trying to think what else is in the range. D1 Core? Having a hard time thinking of others atm.
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Unfortunately the core would be over 5k most of the time by the time you get one to your door (it’s kinda pushing it) and I also don’t want to buy another totaldac when I have 2 already lol, it would prob be the exogal and something like a dangerous music convert 2 or xi sagra (if I wanted to fill the analytical section) or a crane song solaris quantum or uhhhhhhhhhh
Honestly not sure, there’s not many more dacs that are still available new at or under 5k ish that immediately call to me from memory. There are a lot more out there, but none that stand out as what I’d want to include. If I’ve talked about other dacs in this price range before but not mentioned it here, let me know so I don’t forget lol
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Is it safe to say that the HP that would need to be run off speaker taps can be safely run off speaker taps in the first place without the attenuation? It would seem to me that would be the way to get the MOST out of the amp/HP pairing in the first place.
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I mean, a headphone doesn’t need to be run off speaker amps in the first place
Sure, but with some sensitive headphones like a utopia or 3.1 for example sometimes you get noise problems, sometimes you have almost no range from your pre, sometimes it just doesn’t handle the loaded impedance well and it drives weird. Just trial and error and entirely depends on the rest of the chain. I would say that most of the time going directly off taps is preferable if possible, but there are times where it really isn’t feasible or smart to do that. I used the box in this case for consistency mostly, and honestly I didn’t test with the speaker amps all that much in this anyways
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Would you say (off the top of your head) a SW1X DAC III (special) would be better than a Lampizator Big 7 Mk2, or the other way around?
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Hmmmmm that’s a tough one. I’ve really only heard a dac iii and not the special version of that so I don’t know how that boosts that personally, but the move from dac ii to dac ii special was fairly substantial (improved energy and forwardness, better technical ability overall, highly suggested). I would say the iii didn’t compete with a big 7 mk2, but the special has the potential to given how strong jump the special was from normal on the dac ii. I will also say that with any of the sw1x vs lampi, you will want to invest more into the digital source since they are more picky there
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Oh, no worries! I didn’t actually expect the Exogal to show up in the comparison! Also, it’s been “out of stock” for a long while, so I’m honestly pretty skeptical that it’s being produced anymore. For what you’re going for, I’d probably pick something else to fill out the 12.
I was more just joking about the fact that the Exogal is the highest tier DAC I’ve gotten to hear, so I have no frame of reference of where it would’ve fallen in the list. (Not that I wouldn’t be interested in your thoughts if you get to hear one again.)
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It would place well for micro performance and also value given what it can do at the price point imo, I don’t think it holds up to things like the dac ii special, wavelight, may, la voce, or possibly m3, but I could see myself choosing it over a term ii, tt2, yggy a2, morpheus, potentially amber 3 depending on what I was after, so honestly solidly in the middle as an all rounder dac sort of thing. All depends on what you would be looking for, but it would fare pretty well regardless
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Jeff “shot himself in the foot”, with the Exogal and ION combo. The technology works, it works damned well but his all in one combo idea is not much liked by audiophiles. He wanted to sell an all in one solution, he was developing a streamer too and it seems that fell through. Apple dropped his APP, he hates Apple, and he used a damned cheap remote for the Exogal that is a real pain in the ass to work.
I own both his amp and DAC, fully upgraded and they really are a favorite combo for multiple scenarios. All based on desktop or near field use. When I can get his app to work, it works well and is very easy to use but I’m primarily an IOS user and like I said, Apple dropped his app. This is annoying.
@rgdelato what direction are you trying to go next? Where do you feel you are lacking? Or are you just looking for a comparison for the sake of comparison?
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Mostly just comparison for the sake of comparison! I’m not really looking to upgrade my amp or DAC for a while unless something just falls into my lap. (I’m also still somewhat new to the hobby, so it’s just really nice to have someone more articulate than I am describe a thing that I’m hearing.)
Though I guess knowing where I stand does also help with future planning. Like, if the Exogal Comet+ is already in the middle of the pack here, then probably whenever I do upgrade, I’d want to aim higher than something like a La Voce for example. Which is good for me to know, even if that upgrade is a long way off.
And yeah, it seems like things went really badly with the development of the app and such, and the company seems like they had a rough time of things. It’s probably good for me because it probably drove down the used market prices, but yeah, it’s really unfortunate.
And the terrible screen and terrible remote honestly hasn’t affected my enjoyment of the DAC at all. For my particular use case, I use it at my desk where it’s literally like three feet away from me and I hardly ever change the settings.
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Ha, thanks for saying it!
It isn’t going to stop me from considering a La Voce, though. 
Think it would be a worthwhile synergy with a 13R?
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My DAC is red hot your DAC ain’t doodly-squat.
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