[iFi audio]

BD-83SE.

Those were good machines for SACDs. I remember listening to one modded by ModWright many years ago and it sounded fantastic back then.

 

[Lennym]

FWIW, I tracked down the GAD gold and silver foil capacitors, a pair of which are used on the Musetec I/V LPF analog board. They are manufactured by Selectronic Kondensatoren in Germany and sell in small quantity for $92 each. Do we know of any other maker of consumer electronics using parts of this cost/quality?

 

[HermannS]

That is mind boggling in this price class. The meticulous choice of parts made me want this thing. A lot of experimenting must have gone into it.

 

[sns109]

While I've modded my share of equipment in past, I prefer purchasing equipment not in need of mods. Mods can be a pain, especially these days with more surface mount boards. In the case of 005 I presume much subjective listening tests to arrive at sound quality desired; Musetec's China website states as much. Based on past modding experiences with silver wire and capacitors I was wary of the relative high content of silver in 005, turns out needless concern. It would be very informative if we knew audio system 005 was voiced with, as it would be for every audio component out there. I bet every manufacturer would say voicing systems neutral, doubt that's often the case.

 

[HermannS]

It is indeed puzzling how the 005 does not exhibit any of the negative effects that are commonly associated with some of the choices they made. No silvery timbre to be heard. Double(!)-bridged polymer caps and yet no over-emphasis in the treble or general brightness. All my experiments had the opposite result there, which made me quit bridging electrolytics altogether in most configurations. I like that they almost completely refrained from using ceramics. Excellent choice! The engineers knew what they were doing and one thing is for sure: they listened - a lot!
The only mods I can think of right now are better SPDIF sockets (by WBT) and maybe super high-end resistors somewhere in the analog stage. That's it. All the other stuff is already maxed out.

 

[Lennym]

That is mind boggling in this price class. The meticulous choice of parts made me want this thing. A lot of experimenting must have gone into it.

Apparently there was a lot of listening as the development of the DAC went forward. They write of 6 changes of the main board (which I take to mean the I/V LPF analog board) and 20 changes of the power board (which I assume is the board with the super caps powering the digital side).

This latter is very interesting to me as I have sometimes heard the digital side of a DAC called the "dirty" side with the analog circuits called the clean side. What is noteworthy here is the attention to powering the digital circuits, and the associated costs. I have to guess that the listening determined that correctly powering the digital components is more important than is generally understood. This, of course, is all in addition to building a really fine, if not revolutionary, LPS for the main board.

By the way, how refreshing and unusual for a DAC manufacturer to let us in to the inside of the case. I've been doing a lot of poking around the DAC business lately and find that, in general, the companies don't want you to know what's inside. I cannot believe the amount of money people will pay for a case that is a mystery inside, or one that is just a beautiful wrapper surrounding a bunch of chips and a bunch of empty space. One 5 figure DAC has 2 TI chip op amps, one per channel, each costing $1.50 at the center of its analog stage. It has always been my experience in audio that solid, substantial, parts lead to long term enjoyment

While I've modded my share of equipment in past, I prefer purchasing equipment not in need of mods. Mods can be a pain, especially these days with more surface mount boards. In the case of 005 I presume much subjective listening tests to arrive at sound quality desired; Musetec's China website states as much. Based on past modding experiences with silver wire and capacitors I was wary of the relative high content of silver in 005, turns out needless concern. It would be very informative if we knew audio system 005 was voiced with, as it would be for every audio component out there. I bet every manufacturer would say voicing systems neutral, doubt that's often the case.

I too have done mods, mostly cap bypassing, a while back. After screwing up some surface mounted boards, I gave up on that. As for the silver, I too don't like silver in the analog circuits or cables. I do like silver in digital wires; I use solid silver core in my USB cable and spdif. But I think the silver referred to in the Musetec all has to do with the power supply. Again, considering the cost, I have to believe it was validated by listening. The analog circuit seems to be by traces on the six layer board.

 

[sns109]

I do enjoy 6moons reviews as they always include plenty of internal pics of equipment under review. While I haven't opened up my 005, it does appear the 005 uses combo of surface and through hole circuit boards. I've seen those higher cost dacs with mostly open space under cover, always thought not getting much for your money. The question is, does increased parts count always result in higher sound quality? I recently purchased Okto Dac 8 stereo, relatively low parts count, no boutique parts I could see, ie, I had preconception of lower sound quality, couldn't be more wrong, great sound quality at the price!

Still, I prefer seeing high quality parts and manufacturers intentionally voicing components, I believe highest quality audio equipment is a result of objective measurement and subjective listening tests by manufacturer in quality sound system or systems. Its like a chef tasting his culinary creation, and should the chef allow a tasting board to confirm the quality of his/her creation?

 

[HermannS]

Oh, I looove electronics porn pictures, too :-D I would never buy any device without having seen its internals. Never.

The parts count is rather a function of the general architecture. With two 9038 chips, there is no need for a big design around it - compared to an R2R or FPGA DAC, for instance. The power supply must be pristine, though. Off-the-shelf regulators or discrete designs? Parts count x 10. On the analog side, once integrated op-amps are out of the picture, there is room for parts fireworks Personally, I have no respect for manufactures who put standard architectures with lame parts into a shiny box.

Do more parts sound better? I'd say, individual discrete designs give the engineers more room to produce the desired sonic signature. Whether that's better for everybody's ears is on a different page.

 

[Lennym]

I do enjoy 6moons reviews as they always include plenty of internal pics of equipment under review. While I haven't opened up my 005, it does appear the 005 uses combo of surface and through hole circuit boards. I've seen those higher cost dacs with mostly open space under cover, always thought not getting much for your money. The question is, does increased parts count always result in higher sound quality? I recently purchased Okto Dac 8 stereo, relatively low parts count, no boutique parts I could see, ie, I had preconception of lower sound quality, couldn't be more wrong, great sound quality at the price!

Still, I prefer seeing high quality parts and manufacturers intentionally voicing components, I believe highest quality audio equipment is a result of objective measurement and subjective listening tests by manufacturer in quality sound system or systems. Its like a chef tasting his culinary creation, and should the chef allow a tasting board to confirm the quality of his/her creation?

Seeing the picture doesn't always tell the story. Only when Beekhuyzen pointed out the chip ICs op amps in the five figure DAC did I understand what was going on. Also, there is a difference between a commercial reviewer who uses a component just long enough to get a sense of it, and an owner who spends months, years with it. And yes, it is amazing how some of the manufacturers have built large, heavy and expensive cast cases principally to enclose a lot of empty space.

As audiophiles, we are accustomed to paying double or triple the money to extract the last 10 per cent or less from our components. That's what we used to call the "high end." I am enjoying this one so much. I wish I could share more of what I'm hearing from it now, but the odds of so few others here having the same music is pretty low. In the old days, The Absolute Sound used to review from a limited number of unamplified music reference disks. It was not hard to obtain them and understand exactly what the reviewer was hearing.

 

[Lennym]

<snip>
Do more parts sound better? I'd say, individual discrete designs give the engineers more room to produce the desired sonic signature. Whether that's better for everybody's ears is on a different page.

Correct. You might have a look at:

 

[Lennym]

I did a review at the Audio Asylum-Digital. Comments are welcome, here or there.

 

[oldearwax]

I did a review at the Audio Asylum-Digital. Comments are welcome.

I read it ! Thanks. What you have described in the review is the quality that I am seeking for.
I find RR (Reference Recordings) HDCDs work well (but not astonishing) with LKS004.
Do you happen to have any RR HDCD ? If so, how do they sound with LKS005 ?
TIA.

 

[Lennym]

I have one HDCD disk. It's the Reference Recordings Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances. I first ripped it as a CD and later, using dbpoweramp, ripped it as an HDCD. I haven't really cared for either on the LKS or on the Musetec. Sounds like it was recorded in a cave with tons of reverb. The HDCD is slightly more dynamic, though I probably like the CD rip better. I think I recall liking it better played as a disk on my Oppo. Perhaps less of this disk was more. There are far better, and better sounding, recordings of this work.

 

[Lennym]

Here's another factoid on the parts in the Musetec DAC. In place of the toroidal transformer (costing $15-$20) in the LKS DAC and in most other very good DACs, the Musetec uses an "O-type transformer. The primary and secondary windings are made of expensive single crystal copper silver-plated material." Kitsune sells a similar O-type transformer with "OCC silver plated copper wire secondaries!" It costs $120. The Musetec transformer, then, probably costs more.

The question, of course, is whether all of these high quality parts bring about an enhanced SQ. They sure do for me.

 

[sns109]

Without exception over many years of modding, superior parts, superior sound quality in a technical sense. Now, the essential question is whether those parts blend sympathetically with the whole of any particular piece of equipment, and then one's entire system. Yes, all the superior parts in 005 blend sympathetically within the dac and my system.

I also recently added another variable to my system, amongst many I've tried with the variety of equipment I have on hand. Recently returned to Cardas Golden Reference speaker cables after having used Duelund dca past couple months, also been back and forth between Psvane WE Replica and LinLai Elite Mesh plate 101D tubes in Coincident Statement MkII with Amtrans rotary connectors (another example of premium parts, premium sound, $100 each vs. generics at $6 max., I need two as Coincident dual mono). 005 exposes every nuance of every change I've made, 005 resolving powers, ability to expose changes may be highest of any piece of audio equipment I've used in over twenty years in audio!

I'm now more determined than ever to review 005 in context of top configuration Holo May. If I don't see a review prior to October, November time frame, I'll purchase a May. All I see is speculation in regard to differing dac topologies; yet to see a single review directly comparing top line Sabre 9038 pro dac to any one of best R2R dacs out there. Until then Musetec will get short shrift.