Maverick Audio DAC D2

I e-mailed him too. he said that it will get out in two weeks... no specs though...

Any more info on this DAC?

here is it :

http://www.mav-audio.com/base/product/tubemagic_d2

I can't give much a critique since I don't consider myself the expert head-fier yet, but I can share a bit of my experience with it so far, and more importantly some pictures which seem to have been lacking... so here we go:

When I started down the Head-Fi rabbithole ("Welcome to Head-Fi and sorry about your wallet") I thought it would be all about the most accurate experience, but since I have reminded myself it's really for my enjoyment, and I like old-fashioned stuff and very much tubes... I love my Valhalla and have something with a bit more oomph coming my way. In the meantime, the DAC I was really looking for seemed still far off in terms of availability, and I came across this DAC with ~Tube inside~.

It seemed a bit of a long shot (hadn't heard of Maverick Audio, some issues with the D1...) but what the hey. I got the pre-order with the extra tube. Shipping and customer support was good, the only small issue was the lack of shipping notification, so I found the missed delivery notice after contacting Ryan about the order status...

It DID arrive straight from the Shanghai Carpet Factory (seriously!) which was a bit unusual to say the least... talk about diversified. It also smelled strongly of fresh paint (?) and had what seemed like a thin brown film all over it. Cleaning it on the outside with alcohol and letting burn-in (literally) take care of the inside after a couple of days, it's been running like a champ since. The build quality is OK, without the screws the cover is a bit warped, and the source selector knob is not running true and scraping the front panel a bit. Since I almost never use it (always on optical) and the actual switching is via relay, no biggie. And in light of the D1 issues I read about: the relay is the only clicking sound, I have not ever heard anything in the actual audio, neither between tracks or switching sampling frequencies.

On to the inside (tried to upload a larger image for more detail):

And a closeup (I believe these may be the solidstate opamps?):

Overall, I have had it running now most of the time I have to listen to anything these days and it has really grown on me. On the tube output mostly since that's why I got it in the first place, but plugging/unplugging with the standard output, I have honestly not heard -that- much of a difference. Time permitting, this weekend I'll try to hook both outputs and my other DAC(s) up to an RCA switch and finally try to find out how much of a difference it really makes (to my ears anyway...)

TGOM,

I would be very anxious to hear your opinion on this amp,..

I am new to amps/dacs,and never heard anything with tubes ..total nooby.

All sound coming via a windows computer set up.

Using HD 598 & audeze lcd2

Any advise/help will be appreciated,

Mike

I'm not that much of an expert myself... but I'm a longtime music lover and have been listening quite a bit and will certainly share my impressions. I was planning to do it in comparison to the other DACs I have, so that'll take a while longer in view of other obligations...

One thing I want to clarify: you write "your opinion on this AMP", but unlike its predecessor, the D1, the D2 is purely a DAC and does not offer any amplification, so you need to combine it with one. You can find out more in Amp section of the forum, and if the D2 is the price bracket you're looking at to start out, the Schiit Valhalla or Woo Audio WA-3 for example would be a couple of good options.

anyone else who have used this dac would like to comment?