[lordcloud]

Still using my balanced Pagoda. Still sounds great. I have a friend that listened to it, and he now purchased one to replace his Metrum (not sure which model) and his Soekris (their top model).

 

[jberry505]

My Pagoda went teets up. I think the board went bad. I sent it down to luckbad to see if he could salvage it but he said it was too far gone.
I went through couple of other dac's before ending up with a Audio Note 3.1 balanced dac which is absolutely amazing, but 7 times the price of the pagoda.

 

[lordcloud]

My Pagoda went teets up. I think the board went bad. I sent it down to luckbad to see if he could salvage it but he said it was too far gone.
I went through couple of other dac's before ending up with a Audio Note 3.1 balanced dac which is absolutely amazing, but 7 times the price of the pagoda.

What would you say are the things the Audio Note does better than the Pagoda?

 

[213Cobra]

>>Hello All, is anyone here still using their MHDT Labs dac? How is it holding up? If you have made a change, what has replaced your MHDT Labs dac?<<

I started with Havana Balanced back in 2011. A few years ago I moved on to Atlantis for one system, and Pagoda Balanced for another, to add 24/192. I then further improved both by using converter sockets to use 6922 and CCa in place of the 5670 family tubes. So equipped, I haven't heard a DAC yet at any price that on balance convinces me to change, for Redbook, 88 and 192, or for which any improvement is worth the price.

Phil

 

[JMelvin]

It's been nearly a year with the Pagoda and I have no interest in changing it out. Great DAC.

 

[jberry505]

What would you say are the things the Audio Note does better than the Pagoda?

I'm not dissing the Pagoda, I liked it a lot but the Audio Note is by far the best dac I've ever listened to. I has extended bass and smooth but crystal clear highs. It's probably the closest to analog you can get, if that's your thing. It's an R2R tube dac like the MHDT.
I'm very sensitive to harsh highs and the AN excels making them smooth. I can listen all day. But again this dac was a lot of money comapared to the MHDT

 

[thetakeout]

just got a Istanbul from ebay.

I just purchased an MHDT Labs Istanbul off ebay. Right now I just run a macbook pro straight to my dac via usb. I planned to get a schiit eitr but just realized that this damned MHDT dac doesn't take spdif. The Schiit Eitr converts from usb to spdif. Are there audiophile spdif to toslink cables? I didn't notice any on the audioquest site.

The dac takes toslink, usb, rca & bnc (whatever that it).

Do you have any advice on how you would skin this cat? Scrap the eitr and find a different solution? Search for toslink to spidf? Something else??

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[213Cobra]

just got a Istanbul from ebay.

I just purchased an MHDT Labs Istanbul off ebay. Right now I just run a macbook pro straight to my dac via usb. I planned to get a schiit eitr but just realized that this damned MHDT dac doesn't take spdif. The Schiit Eitr converts from usb to spdif. Are there audiophile spdif to toslink cables? I didn't notice any on the audioquest site.

The dac takes toslink, usb, rca & bnc (whatever that it).

Do you have any advice on how you would skin this cat? Scrap the eitr and find a different solution? Search for toslink to spidf? Something else??

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I don't understand the confusion.

The RCA, BNC and Toslink inputs are accepting of S/PDIF signal.

Phil

 

[thetakeout]

I don't understand the confusion.

The RCA, BNC and Toslink inputs are accepting of S/PDIF signal.

Phil

Unless I am missing something those three wont take an spdif cable. They won’t on my peachtree dac.

How about this. What cable do I need to make this work? Maybe that makes the question more clear.

Sorry for any confusion here.

Thanks for the help!

 

[nihil sleighride]

I use an Eitr will my Istanbul. Connect a single 75ohm RCA cable from the Co-axial digital output on the Eitr to the digital input on the Istanbul marked RCA.

 

[nihil sleighride]

And to answer the original question...yes I still use and love the Istanbul, I did swap the chips to PCM61P-K's.

 

[thetakeout]

And to answer the original question...yes I still use and love the Istanbul, I did swap the chips to PCM61P-K's.

nihil sleighride

thanks so much for the response. a couple of follow ups. Any recommendation on a good 75 ohm digital rca. Or even just what cable you have had success with. Amazon Basics to Audioquest! I would love to hear your experience there.

Also is there an online tutorial about how to swap out the dac chips? Where would one source PCM61P-K chips?

Any thoughts on how the change impacted the sound?

Thanks for helping the new guy out.

 

[nihil sleighride]

Hi

I used nothing more than an old Cambridge Audio Digital one I had lying around and although now I've swapped to an NVA TIS.
You could try one from here as a starter
https://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/digital-audio/index.htm
Or I'm sure the Amazon one will be fine.

I got the chips just by looking on eBay for some. Swapping the chips out is nothing more than very carefully releasing them from their socket on the board and replacing with the new ones. I just just Googled 'How to remove and replace socketed chips'

What changed? I just got more sound I was loving in its original form. It's got all good things liked about just with more depth, better sense of scale.

 

[Luckbad]

Does anyone happen to know the screw size for the top plate of MHDT DACs? Some time ago, I misplaced the screws for my Orchid and I'd like to actually screw it down now that I stopped tube rolling away from the GE triple mica.

 

[s1rrah]

Does anyone happen to know the screw size for the top plate of MHDT DACs? Some time ago, I misplaced the screws for my Orchid and I'd like to actually screw it down now that I stopped tube rolling away from the GE triple mica.

Email them. They will send you new screws. I did this with a Havana I used to own...