fair enough. he just brought that up on whatsbest and I found it interesting. Means that a twelve and sublime arent actualy all that far apart once you spec them both out.
They need to learn from Mojo Audion and Rockna - thereās a good version, and thereās a better version. And thatās about it lol
Although mojo also had many options with the previous lines. Whatās up with all the companies and line ups
I think a lot of companies over the past few years found their lineups messed up either because of forced supply chain reasons, higher demand or fall of demand over pandemic, and also some of the great innovations that some mfg have made after being locked inside for so long
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its one of those āwell we can have all these options, so why not give them the choice!ā
Thats how you get a base model SW1x that out prices the 2 tier higher model
In vincentās defence, I think it makes more sense with TD since their prices scale so high so fast, and he doesnt tend to keep competeing products onsale besides eachother.
Itās also a known sales tactic that leads you to purchase something more expensive than you intended because itās close enough to not be out of reach.
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Looking at the TD prices itās actually quite simple for me if I needed to decide on one - definitely the Unity. Itās the latest and greatest and anything above that is in fuck no price ranges for me lol
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I finally got the dealer with the direct stack on the phone. He is not willing to split up the player as of right now.
Would anyone be interested in the d1-player (roon nucleus plus) + totaldac ethernet cables? I could also include the d1-streamer mk2 w/ normal power and a TD AES cable if that pushes you over the edge.
If anyone is even slightly interested, reach out. TBH I want the dac, but I just cant swing the whole chain right now and cant stream anyways.
So I got to listen to a triunity yesterday, not in my own setup, but a setup I had previously heard my twelve mk2 in (although it changed a bit since then), and from rough memory and a non equal comparison, the triunity is almost just better lol. It really added a more macro focus without losing any of the nuance and directness in the twelve, and was a bit of an overall technical bump as well, super impressive. I think it still def sounds like totaldac, but less relaxed and less micro focused, stage is more expansive now while still being very accurate and organic (not horizon level of space and grandness but not much is lol), easy step up from direct + drivers as well. Thereās just more information, itās more realistically presented, and itās even less colored than before. Really going in the right direction in every way, canāt think of any qualms or anything that the twelve did better in their setup (although Iād really need them side by side to make sure of that). I guess some might prefer the slight step back laid back nature of the twelve off itās own output stage in some setups, but I donāt think itās worth the tradeoffs just for that lol.
As for the twelve + drivers vs triunity, they never had drivers for their twelve, but given how the drivers elevate the twelve direct out, I think itās close if I had to guess lol. I really really want to move to a sublime now, will have to do that by the end of the year lol. If the triunity is this far ahead of the older lower end totaldac, I imagine the unity is a step ahead of the six and seven now lol, but canāt say for sure (but Iād def be willing to bet lol). Donāt see the point of going for a twelve + no drivers or under when the triunity exists, although I am sure that taiko he has is giving it a real real strong boost so thatās something to account for lol.
The system was a taiko extreme ā triunity (or horizon) ā vitus sl-103 ā vitus ss-103 (class a and classic mode) ā vimberg tonda, tara labs cabling, donāt know other tweaks.
Really like the direction the new totaldacs are going if the triunity is representative of what the unity and sublime sound like
Edit: did do a quick comparison of the horizon vs triunity, and the horizon was still a step ahead there, but I bet a sublime might eclipse the horizon at this point lol, I already thought the horizon vs twelve mk2 + drivers was down to synergy and priority, and I think in their setup they felt the pacific was more what they were looking for vs twelve mk2, and when they upgraded to horizon that really cemented it for them, but they got curious about the new totaldac, glad they did lol. I think the setup sorta really needed a boost in macro capabilities and also a more expansive stage when they had the twelve, both of which the pac and horizon provided for them, although they didnāt have as good of a digital source when they had the twelve, so I wonder how the comparison would fare in my speaker setup where I think the totaldac had better synergy
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Guess stretching to the triunity it is then
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Given that demo I canāt say youāll regret it at all lol, very impressive dac, wasnāt expecting it to be as transformative as it was, was kinda expecting something a bit more incremental but itās not, itās a pretty noticeable shift and a pretty noticeable jump over other td
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I noticed the d1-tube is no longer available, only the mk2. It was up on their website last weekend. Any theories on this?
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@Michael any impressions on the unity now that youāve had it in for some time? (also now that youāve got a nicer digital source for it lol)
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My thoughts still line up reasonably nicely with what @Polygonhell wrote up in his review. Thereās nothing really in-your-face about what it does, but itās also easy to hear everything itās doing if you choose to. Which means itās really good if you want to just sit back and listen to relax, but it is equally as good it you want to listen to something critically. Not really heard that before, which means I really need to get something else in so that I have something fair to compare it to, lol.
Individual things that have really stood out to me though are the stage( both size all around and ability to place things within that stage), how natural and right things sound, and itās sensitivity to cable changes, even just basic ones. To be fair with that last one though, Iād be saying that about any DAC at this level, or likely the tier below this. Itās just my first experience hearing it, so it stands out more.
I do need to do some more playing around with the gain control. Thereās a definite impact to lowering it, but I havenāt quite made up my mind how big that impact is. Or where it becomes too detrimental to go past. I also need to try a wider variety of amps on it. See what it likes and doesnāt like. The Oor+Hypsos is a perfectly fine pairing, but if that stack pairs with DACs the same way it pairs with headphones then I donāt see it being anything less than āgood enoughā with any DAC.
And as you pointed out with the digital source, it can certainly scale with a better source. Iāve had it connected three ways now, straight to my PC via USB, USB to the UltraRendu, and Toslink to a Douk U2 Pro which connects to my PC. Thereās a huge gap between the UR and the U2, and a smaller but still noticeable gap between the U2 and straight USB. I know Iāve already talked to you about it, but for anyone else curious, itās enough that Iāve already decided that Iām going to pick up an OptiModule and FMC to take it another step further.
Really not sure what else to say. Itās such a stupidly huge leap over anything Iāve previously heard that it makes describing it difficult, lol.
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I think many here share that sentiment with some of their higher end DAC upgrades, including me. Especially since I moved within the same company to the higher end, itās simply better with everything. Not even sure what better means but yeah itās better lol
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@M0N Just a curoius question, but do you have any of the TD boxes stacked on top of eachother? If so, got any isolation footers or anything between them?
So I havenāt really messed around with isolation for totaldac, because thereās too many boxes and I donāt want to have to buy isolation for everything, so yes I do have them stacked lol. Not ideal, and I know they can be better, but right now itās not really a priority for me lol (would rather just upgrade to sublime before messing with isolation). I do have isolation for everything else except the totaldac stuff though lol (I guess not on my antipodes or network stuff though)
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Honestly vaugely suprised that you dont at least have the full stack on some cheap iso pucks, but I really feel you with that ātheres just too much shit to the stackā. That feeling is litteraly why I even asked the question 
@M0N what are your thoughts on the d1-tube mk1? The low output voltage of 1.4v is a potential red flag, despite the tube output stage providing a 420 ohm output impedance ( my main amp has a 50k input impedance on the rca inputs)
Is this a similar scenario with the d1-direct, where it doesnāt make sense without the d1-driver?
Thanks in advance, and to anyone else willing to chime in.
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Iāve never heard the d1 tube or mk2, I generally donāt hear as positive things about it as the other totaldac tbh, but not tried one so donāt know. I donāt think the output voltage will be a problem, and I donāt think it would make sense to get a driver for it either. The direct has no output stage whatsoever and just drives off the ladder so that causes a lot more unique of an output to handle, which is why the driver is suggested. The tube already had an output stage (itās in the name lol) and around 1-2v rms on rca is plenty fine as long as you donāt have a really low gain amp, so I donāt think it would make sense to consider a driver with it (youād just be better off grabbing a unity at that point)
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