[Luckbad]

The new MHDT Labs Canary is outstanding. A very romantic and musical sounding DAC.

I now understand the infatuation with its predecessor, the Paradisea.

It's a bit thicker sounding and wetter than the Atlantis, so I'll likely roll in a slightly more airy and detailed tube at some point.

It really is an excellent value and I highly recommend it.

If you want a proper taste of a great R-2R NOS DAC, you couldn't make a better choice than the MHDT Labs Canary. It's a great value and sounds awesome.

The only cheaper option I could recommend is the Starting Point Systems DAC 3. It's not quite as good as the Canary and you can't tune the sound with tubes, but it's a bit less expensive.

 

[Vigrith]

The new MHDT Labs Canary is outstanding. A very romantic and musical sounding DAC.

I now understand the infatuation with its predecessor, the Paradisea.

It's a bit thicker sounding and wetter than the Atlantis, so I'll likely roll in a slightly more airy and detailed tube at some point.

It really is an excellent value and I highly recommend it.

If you want a proper taste of a great R-2R NOS DAC, you couldn't make a better choice than the MHDT Labs Canary. It's a great value and sounds awesome.

The only cheaper option I could recommend is the Starting Point Systems DAC 3. It's not quite as good as the Canary and you can't tune the sound with tubes, but it's a bit less expensive.

 
Very interesting, I have a few friends who love the Paradisea so I'm excited to hear more about the Canary - I've been on the prowl looking for a MHDT DAC for a while and this one falls a bit more in line with the amount I'd be willing to spend than the Stockholm V2 so that's good news.
 
Any idea if they give you the option of going balanced with the Canary? I know people with balanced Havanas 1 and 2, as well as Stockholm, I've e-mailed MHDT regarding this query of mine (as well as figuring out how much extra I'd have to pay for it) but haven't got a reply as of yet sadly.

 

[Luckbad]

Not sure about a balanced option, but I've had balanced and unbalanced dacs and amps and have never found balanced dacs to be any better than single-ended (even into a balanced amp).

 

[Vigrith]

Understandably so, I agree with your assessment too generally speaking, however I'd running them into monoblocks so the balanced XLR out is a not a commodity but a necessity.

 

[Sechtdamon]

Btw guys, earlier i mentioned about a electrical hum from Atlantis. As it turns out its because bad distrubution of electricity of the apartment. My room's outlets share switch with another room. I tried my system at my friend's house and there was no hum. I'm getting seperate switch for my audio chain now.

 

[Luckbad]

The Canary is enjoying its place in my work setup. Really loving it. In my search for other owners, I discovered that they used to make a Canary.

That version had 2 chips instead of 4, op-amps, and some other differences.

It has a lovely musicality to it. Highly recommended.

 

[slex]

The Canary is enjoying its place in my work setup. Really loving it. In my search for other owners, I discovered that they used to make a Canary.

That version had 2 chips instead of 4, op-amps, and some other differences.

It has a lovely musicality to it. Highly recommended.

May i know how it compare to audiogd's line of 1704UK nos dac?

 

[Vigrith]

The Canary is enjoying its place in my work setup. Really loving it. In my search for other owners, I discovered that they used to make a Canary.

That version had 2 chips instead of 4, op-amps, and some other differences.

It has a lovely musicality to it. Highly recommended.

 
Yea I googled it before and found a few threads from like 2012-2014 regarding an earlier version of the Canary.
 
Would you say the Canary is far behind their other offerings, for example the Atlantis/Stockholm you used to own? I'm considering buying one for my office so I'm not concerned with it being slightly worse than their more expensive DACs as long as it is still competitive for the price. "lovely musicality" is pretty much what I'm looking for, non-fatiguing and smooth sound for long work sessions - from my research it seemed the Stockholm V2 was the most fitting for my needs and sonic preferences, however with the addition of the much cheaper Canary I'm re-weighing my options. 

 

[Luckbad]

I still have an Atlantis with some nice mods. Recently sold my Sonic Frontiers SFD-1 MKII and I'm using that as my main.

Compared to Stockholm, the Canary has a little less authority to its sound. But the Canary has a more relaxing feeling to its euphony.

For a work DAC, I prefer the Canary.

 

[Vigrith]

Ah yea, I have read about your modded Atlantis - impressive piece.
 
That's great to hear, I'll most definitely be buying a Canary within the near future then. I'd like to get it with balanced outs (weird that they don't offer those as standard given they have 4 chips) in order to not have to use a passive DI to handle the signal splitting properly and the XLRs into my monoblocks but at $700 it's hardly a deal breaker.

 

[s1rrah]

This isn't MHDT Lab related but it is R2R DAC related and so wanted to see if any of you caught this when it was for sale a bit earlier this year ...
 
It's a custom build buy a Head-fi user and I forget what he sold it for but I think it went for something like $1600+ ... it's really beautiful, and was wondering if anybody had experience with this particular DAC chip (AD1865) ... also, it has a true analogue tube output stage (as opposed to a simple buffer) ...
 
Here's the original for sale thread: http://www.head-fi.org/t/781814/fs-premium-r-2r-ad1865-based-dac-with-tube-analog-stage
 
Some photos (so nice): 
 
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Just a conversation piece ...
 
FYI

 

[Soundsgoodtome]

Same chip as on Atlantis but just like the Atlantis it's going to heavily rely on the components around the chips for sound.

 

[s1rrah]

Same chip as on Atlantis but just like the Atlantis it's going to heavily rely on the components around the chips for sound.

 
Ahhh ... interesting ... I didn't put that together ...

 

[Soundsgoodtome]

   
Ahhh ... interesting ... I didn't put that together ...

Oh wait, my mistake. The Atlantis has dual AD1862 not AD1865 so different.

 

[Luckbad]

I've had a DAC or two with the AD1865 and found the AD1862 to be more detailed. But it could have been the implementation surrounding the chips.
 
It's bad when I've owned enough DACs that I can't even remember which ones had those chips...