Musical Paradise M2-D2 AK4490 Balanced Dac Reviews?

rajacat said:

  I've been burning in my pair of the 6np1-ev for several days. My impressions are similar to yours. The first thing I noticed was that they are well balanced end to end. Out of the box they seemed a little restrained but I hope this goes away with more time. From what I understand is that they're a military tube and have been ruggedized so perhaps this means that they need extensive run-in time before they loosen up. I do believe that they have better separation than my Amperex 6dj8 but I don't know for sure until I go back and give the Amperex another listen. Currently, I believed the Amperex is more organic sounding but not as linear. I'll update.
 
For those of us who're running single ended, the sockets that aren't being used, although it's required that they be filled with tubes of the same voltage, you can use these sockets to burn-in new tubes, they're still running current. Very convenient.

 One could do the same when cap rolling too.
 
I have a new rectifier arriving early next week. This one looks like something out of the mad scientist's lab deep in the Transylvania backwoods . 
 
United Electronics (USAF) 596

Click to expand...

Oh boy, this is great. I have been waiting to get some impressions on the USAF 596 for some time now. Its seems to be a very competent rectifier.
 
So far I have tried out the following rectifiers;
1. Psvane WE 274B - The best rectifier I have listened to so far. It has everything going for it. Very neutral and natural sounding with great frequency extension. Gives you a layered #D soundstage if your tubes are capable. 
2. Brimar 5Z4G - Very good mid range but not much else. Lacks frequency extension on both ends. Lower bass frequencies are hollow sounding while high treble is non existing. But if you are in to 70's rock this might be a rectifier you'd want to check out. It fills out that mid-bass very nicely.
3. Sovtek 5AR4 - New production - I would rather buy any NOS (other than the RCA 5U4G) tube instead of this tube.
4. Bendix 6106 - Pretty well extended with nice tight bass. But soundstage is narrow - almost solid state-ish as is the sound.
5. Psvane 5U4G - New production - Very nice from Midrange to upper frequencies. Mid bass is okay but bass drops after that. Compared to the WE 274B bass sounds rounded, soft and hollow. Midrange and treble is quite detailed but placement and separation is not good.
6.  RCA 5U4G - Fantastic extended treble. An HD800 kind of soundstage. And nothing else. Midrange is okay but nothing much below mid-bass. I personally think that I kind of wasted my money on the Psvane 5U4G as well as the RCA 5U4G.
 
I would love to hear what rectifiers the others are using. My experience is that the rectifier is probably as important as the signal tubes in the D2.

I do like the 6np1-ev. Compared to the Amperex Orange Globe 6dg8 they're more transparent, detailed and image better. Very dynamic!
I keep going back and forth. The Globes are very easy to listen to. A pleasurable thickness to the midrange; an organic texture. The Holland sound. Maybe they need some more hours too. It seems like the Russian tubes need more burning in to get rid of a slight glare. They have a lot of potential. Very good for large orchestral pieces. I have about 50 hrs. on them. They seem to have more gain. Perhaps this is due to their heavier current draw than the typical 6dj8/6922. One good point with the D2 is its robust power supply which, I presume, accounts for its ability to handle a large variety of valves.

It's nice to be burning tubes in the spare sockets because of running in single ended. The Orange Globes have been accumulating hours while I'm listening to the Russians.

Amid all this tube rolling my Mundorf S/O's,with Russian FT3 0.1uf bypasses, are still adjusting to their new home. They had about 6 mos. of time when I bought them but hadn't been used recently. I wonder if they're still changing with a new gig?

The mighty 596 is here but I'm still waiting for the adaptor socket. It's supposed to be here today.

I still love my MP-D2.

Gents,
 
Has anyone done a comparison between 6v and 12v tubes? Impressions?
 
Gary poo-pooed the 12au7 and preferred the 6922/6dj8 tubes over them. He said the 12au7 was a slow tube. I'm looking at some 12au7 tubes and thought to ask before I took the leap.
 
Chris

rodge827 said:

  Gents,
 
Has anyone done a comparison between 6v and 12v tubes? Impressions?
 
Gary poo-pooed the 12au7 and preferred the 6922/6dj8 tubes over them. He said the 12au7 was a slow tube. I'm looking at some 12au7 tubes and thought to ask before I took the leap.
 
Chris

Click to expand...

Chris,
I haven't tried any 12V yet. Ask Jack over on AudioShark. He has tried 12au7s along with many others.
 
Roy

Ah, the Mighty USAF 596! Burning in now. Sounds very promising.


It's a sizable tube. Very hefty with Coke bottle thick glass. Built to withstand a nuclear war.

I've returned to the Amperex Orange Globe 6dg8s'.Their bass isn't as punchy but they lack the slight glare of the Voskhod  6N1P EV. I'm going to let the Russians burn-in on the spare sockets for a while. It seems like the Orange Globes are getting better with age. Very easy on the ears.

rodge827 said:

  Gents,
 
Has anyone done a comparison between 6v and 12v tubes? Impressions?
 
Gary poo-pooed the 12au7 and preferred the 6922/6dj8 tubes over them. He said the 12au7 was a slow tube. I'm looking at some 12au7 tubes and thought to ask before I took the leap.
 
Chris

Click to expand...

Hey Chris,
 
I did try a few 12AU7's (Radiotechnique, Siemens & EH) in the beginning. My active speakers are pretty sensitive and the gain from the 6922 family is too much in my system. The main difference I perceived between the 12AU7 and 6922's is tonality. I have a quad of Radiotechnique which is every bit as good as my 6h23n reflektors but the reflektors score heavily on tone and timbre. You can say that the 12AU7's sound a bit thin. Thats putting it a bit simplistically but to me, that is the main difference.
The tube that matches the reflektors IMHO is the Sylvania GB-6201. Superb extension, fantastic bass, detailed and neutral yet maintaining a bit of tube eufonia. The GB-6201 is also probably the quietest tube I've heard.
I am currently using the 6h30's which are absolute tone monsters - which is how I like my tubes to be. They are slightly less focused in placement (and the top end is slightly mellow in comparison) but otherwise match the reflektors in every aspect and outperform them in terms of a very realistic sound and tone. This tube also has the best bass among all my tubes and  the only tube I've heard that puts singers in my room. To me this tube is the "45" of small signal tubes.
Cheers

rajacat said:

  I've returned to the Amperex Orange Globe 6dg8s'.Their bass isn't as punchy but they lack the slight glare of the Voskhod  6N1P EV. I'm going to let the Russians burn-in on the spare sockets for a while. It seems like the Orange Globes are getting better with age. Very easy on the ears.

Click to expand...

Hey 'rajacat'
Wanted to know whether you found any change in the 6n1p's. I have been using mine sporadically and these are possibly the most detailed and linear tubes in my collection. The only issues I have is that the bass is super damped - to the extent that to me it sounds very unnatural. I wanted to know your inputs, whether you had more improvement after the extended burning in...

aneep said:

  Hey 'rajacat'
Wanted to know whether you found any change in the 6n1p's. I have been using mine sporadically and these are possibly the most detailed and linear tubes in my collection. The only issues I have is that the bass is super damped - to the extent that to me it sounds very unnatural. I wanted to know your inputs, whether you had more improvement after the extended burning in...

Click to expand...

I'm still on the Amperex Orange Globes. I moved the 6n1p's over to the inactive sockets for awhile.and then some Voshod 6n23p's were delivered so I put them in the break in sockets and the 6n1p's back in their boxes. Amid all this I was burning in the USAF 360 rectifier so I got a little mixed up as to ​which tubes were affecting the sound in what way. Also my Bolder SB3 gave up the ghost so now I'm running the MP2 via USB and just installed JRiver Media Center. Of course, the XMOS USB board needs burning in so its not the best time to roll tubes  with all these sound influences in flux.
I'm going through some cable changes too. In addition, I'm considering buying either the microRendu or sMS-200 maybe with the LPS 1. 
   Once my system get stabilized I'll be better able to offer better informed opinions on tube rolling. MP-2 still sounding excellent. 
I did remove the Russian FT3 0.1uf bypass caps from the Mundorf S/O's. I decided to let the Mundorfs do their own thing since they're a very high quality cap.

Is anybody using DSD with their MP-2?

I just bought one and should have it next week monday. My question: What's the distance between binding posts for the Cap's? I wanna try a pair of Vcap CuTF's and they are fairly large. 1.88 X 3.13 is what is listed on the Vcap website. Also, the owners manual states: Output coupling capacitors voltage must be at lease 450V
or up capacitance must between1uf and 4.7uf, Stock one is 630V 2.2uf.
 
I plan on running mine SE and using 2.0uf 450V CuTF's and maybe trying a pair of .01uf as bypass caps. Anyone tried cap rolling yet?

rajacat said:

  Is anybody using DSD with their MP-2?

Click to expand...

I plan on trying the few rare DSD files i have!

rajacat said:

  Is anybody using DSD with their MP-2?

Click to expand...

I've been using the MP-D2 for DSD exclusively; I use HQPlayer to upscale all digital source material to DSD256 which I pass to the MP-D2 natively.
 
I'm loving this DAC. It replaced a Concero HD (which I fed DSD128 from HQPlayer) and an AudioNote Kit Dac2 for me, which wasn't an easy decision until spending some time with the MP - I was very happy with those DACs. Now that I've settled in on a combination of tubes, caps and HQPlayer settings that suit me, this DAC via DSD is as good as digital has ever sounded in my system. I keep a Korg DS-DAC-10R in use for it's ADC capabilities as I've started ripping vinyl to DSD128 (I'm a vinyl guy first and foremost) but the MP-D2 is so good that the turntable sits idle these days.
 
I posted a review of the D2 with implementation & system info here;
 
http://www.hifihaven.org/forum/all-things-digital/50601-review-musical-paradise-mp-d2

billfort said:

  I've been using the MP-D2 for DSD exclusively; I use HQPlayer to upscale all digital source material to DSD256 which I pass to the MP-D2 natively.
 
I'm loving this DAC. It replaced a Concero HD (which I fed DSD128 from HQPlayer) and an AudioNote Kit Dac2 for me, which wasn't an easy decision until spending some time with the MP - I was very happy with those DACs. Now that I've settled in on a combination of tubes, caps and HQPlayer settings that suit me, this DAC via DSD is as good as digital has ever sounded in my system. I keep a Korg DS-DAC-10R in use for it's ADC capabilities as I've started ripping vinyl to DSD128 (I'm a vinyl guy first and foremost) but the MP-D2 is so good that the turntable sits idle these days.
 
I posted a review of the D2 with implementation & system info here;
 
http://www.hifihaven.org/forum/all-things-digital/50601-review-musical-paradise-mp-d2

Click to expand...

Thanks for your response and the link to your review. Very informative thread over there too. I'll be attempting to run DSD soon via either HQPlayer/ROON or JRiver.

Picked up this ultra rare Western Electric 422A for my MP D2..



And this WireWorld Starlight 6 USB Cable

Going to Vintage Tube Services ( http://vintagetubeservices.com ) later today and talk with Andy about picking out a pair of nos tubes to use. And he's going to test/verify the 422A is in good shape as it's a eBay purchase... I would really recommend contacting him before buying tubes anywhere else. Just take a look at his website.

Do you guys know that Parts Connexion is having a 25% off sale on Capacitors? ( http://www.partsconnexion.com/t/eblast/2017/apr/apr.html )

I'm taking advantage of that and ordered a pair of Duelund 3.3uF 630VAC, CAST Cu/Ag Hybrid Caps.

So once I make my tube selection with Andy, I'll have all the upgrades in place and ready to install.. just waiting on the cap order from pcX...

This is going to be fun!! I'll post the tube choice once I have them!