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MHDT Labs Pagoda - Any owners out there?
Oct 25, 2016 at 5:10 PM Post #136 of 174
New-to-be Pagoda owner here! It should be shipped today! This'll be my first experience with a NOS design and I'm very excited to check it out! It's shipping with a stock tube and an inexpensive Russian substitute. Any of you fine gentlemen have a suggestion for another alternative that won't require me to refinance anything?! 
 
Oct 25, 2016 at 6:29 PM Post #137 of 174
joedoe said:
  New-to-be Pagoda owner here! It should be shipped today! This'll be my first experience with a NOS design and I'm very excited to check it out! It's shipping with a stock tube and an inexpensive Russian substitute. Any of you fine gentlemen have a suggestion for another alternative that won't require me to refinance anything?! 
Click to expand...

 
Bendix 2C51 - very good tube, airy, detailed, clean tight bass
JW WE396A - more meat than the Bendix, more mid centered, slightly more bass and noticeably smoother highs; not as airy as the Bendix
 
Those are probably the two best tubes for any of the MHDT Labs DACs that I've personally heard.  
 
Enjoy and please post some thoughts once you get acquainted with the DAC!
 
joel
 
Oct 25, 2016 at 7:46 PM Post #138 of 174
s1rrah said:
   
Bendix 2C51 - very good tube, airy, detailed, clean tight bass
JW WE396A - more meat than the Bendix, more mid centered, slightly more bass and noticeably smoother highs; not as airy as the Bendix
 
Those are probably the two best tubes for any of the MHDT Labs DACs that I've personally heard.  
 
Enjoy and please post some thoughts once you get acquainted with the DAC!
 
joel
Click to expand...

 
joedoe said:
  New-to-be Pagoda owner here! It should be shipped today! This'll be my first experience with a NOS design and I'm very excited to check it out! It's shipping with a stock tube and an inexpensive Russian substitute. Any of you fine gentlemen have a suggestion for another alternative that won't require me to refinance anything?! 
Click to expand...

 

I'm a much bigger fan of the Bendix than the JW WE396A sound but that's just my preferences, both are excellent. If you need details out of your dac, which I think is a must out of the dac portion of a chain, then the Bendix 2C51 is the must-go. If you're more into the delivery of the sound rather than wanting ALL the details, then the JW or even GE Triple Micca is a great compromise between detail and adding more tube goodness to the mix.

To me the best way to achieve even more tube sound is to get an hybrid tube amp after the MHDT Dac. The MHDT Dac seems to synergize very well with a tube amp after the chain as well as the SS amps.

My setup is MHDT Pagoda with the Bendix for that tight, fast, detailed sound and SS afterwards to keep it all together to the headphone. However if I want to relax and have a great tubey sound I get my Project Horizon after the Pagoda and plug in the K612 (previously HD800). For 90% of my listening I've gone with HE560 with the MHDT and Audio-gd SA31SE.
 
Apr 12, 2017 at 7:32 AM Post #139 of 174
I was referred to the MHDT DAC family recently, and wanted to see how many of you still use a Balanced Pagoda? I'm tempted to pair one with an Audio-GD Master 9 for an improved setup.
 
Apr 18, 2017 at 11:25 AM Post #146 of 174
lordcloud said:
After about a month or so, I plan on looking for tubes that will help increase resolution.

So far, it sounds great! Very present, very dimensional. Instruments have weight and gravitas. Things just sound like music.

Still burning everything in though.
Click to expand...

This is really, really promising! I'm concerned with getting the Balanced Pagoda because I messaged Jiun and he mentioned that the RCA components in the Balanced Pagoda match the standard Pagoda, and you'd have to use the XLR ports to take advantage of the Balanced Pagoda's capabilities. That's going to require some gear reshuffling on my end!
 
Apr 18, 2017 at 3:30 PM Post #147 of 174
axtran said:
This is really, really promising! I'm concerned with getting the Balanced Pagoda because I messaged Jiun and he mentioned that the RCA components in the Balanced Pagoda match the standard Pagoda, and you'd have to use the XLR ports to take advantage of the Balanced Pagoda's capabilities. That's going to require some gear reshuffling on my end!
Click to expand...


My transport has balanced out, and is said to sound best that way, so I had to get the balanced version.

So far, it sounds really really good!
 
May 30, 2017 at 10:20 PM Post #148 of 174
I didn't try any of the recommended tubes with the Pagoda. But I did get a 6922 adapter, and I'm now using a pair of Amperex 7308's, and the sound is MUCH better than with the stock tubes. Everything improved. Particularly the dimensionality.
 
Jun 10, 2017 at 8:03 PM Post #149 of 174
New to the Pagoda club here. I have owned some good dacs but I really love the sound and performance of this dac. Curious if anyone has used a DDC in their chain with the Pagoda like the Singxer SU-1?
 
Jul 23, 2017 at 10:22 PM Post #150 of 174
shultzee said:
New to the Pagoda club here. I have owned some good dacs but I really love the sound and performance of this dac. Curious if anyone has used a DDC in their chain with the Pagoda like the Singxer SU-1?
Click to expand...

Would love to hear the answer for this too. Any non-balanced Pagoda owners using the aforementioned 6922 adapters to positive effect?
 
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