I might contemplate an upgrade, as soon as something affordable sounds better. But now I am proud that we (you first!) made so many discerning audiophiles happy!

As the starter of this thread I am very pleased to see the 005 still going so strong! I still listen to it every day, without feeling any itch to update.

Thanks! Thinking about an Intona isolator now.

iPurifier does not isolate galvanically, so I worry a bit about dc offset. The pc is on another spur. Or does DA005 take care of all this on its own?

Maybe it is the time of the year, but I find myself musing about usb decrapifiers again. I use an iPurifier3. Should I replace it, or add something? What do y'all think?

Well done indeed DBB1! Your 'modus operandi' reflects the goal of this thread: find the best DAC by comparative listening.

I

I was responsible for adding the 'quote' above. Should have been a reply, don't know what went wrong. Anyway, the Pearl stays!

Interesting: do not seek the best usb cable in general, but the best one for this dac. Nice too that the best could be the cheapest too! More suggestions? I'm using the Supra.

Agree on diminishing need for HR, as growing resolution of the replay chain unveils more detail and finesse in 16/44 files. That is a lot of music getting better and better! Who would've thunk it 20 years ago?

Thx. That helps.

Otoh, if Jinbo is aware of this thread, exclusively devoted to his DA005 by his customers, who are generating only positive pr for it, he might be asked to be more forthcoming, as sns109 pointed out not long ago. Has Jinbo published his email address?

I'm curious which player he uses. JRiver? Audirvana Studio? A Chinese language version of AS is available. But I hesitate to intrude.

Good news for me. Guess I'll keep my nuc + lps for a while then.

This is my story too, more or less. After taking the iPurifier out of the chain yesterday evening I heard no worse sq, but after putting it back this morning I was glad I did: more transparency, delicacy of treble. The same goes for my removing + reinserting today of 2 iFi spdif ipurifiers (for...

Yesterday I took my iPurifier 3 out of the usb chain, just to listen for the difference. Did not hear any yet. I must say the Musetec DA005 seems to need a lot less help than its preceding DA004. With that dac I felt significant benefit from both the usb- and the SPDIF ipurifiers.

Shiny discs are absolutely fine.

Yes, what comes before the dac is the hardest part to get right. At one point In my DA004 years I had three Windows 10 + Jriver pc's at the same time (run of the mill desktop, Asus notebook and Asrock Beebox mini), and via the DA004 and a slew of USB boxes (Intona, iFi, Singxer) they all sounded...

Earlier in this thread we discussed preamps. I did not have one then, a decision based on a satisfying assessment of the quality of the DA005 volume control, and on the assumption there was no logical argument against direct injection by the dac into a power amp, provided the amp presents a...

Maybe we should solder some extra parts into our da005's to compete with r7. Seriously, this thread is about finding the best dac by listening. I would be very interested in a comparative audition of these two.

Thanks + sorry. Didn't understand first time.

I don't mean to be sarcastic, but which fuse should sound better than the stock DA005 one?

Very interesting, thanks! I might even swap the fuse (anything for more hifi sex), though I never understood why and how this could be musically meaningful.