[T 1000]

I cared to give my opinion while the brand was in its infancy, Musician now has more devices and projects and I don’t care anymore to support them.
Many have listened to and compared this DAC with others and made their own judgment about it.
Everyone has their reasons for accepting or not accepting a certain product, but I think there is a lot of hatred in convincing users on a certain thread(without owning a Pegasus) that their DAC is worse than cheaper DACs.
All this is now completely weightless, because Pegasus is a very capable DAC and I am very happy with it
If you can improve the listening experience through this DAC, you are welcome, otherwise - undesirable.
Here we are trying to follow this medium with the best possible experience, and not to introduce hatred

 

[sajunky]

It's hot this summer !!
NOS is oversampling free not (necessarily) filter free.
The idea is to leave the freedom to oversample with other solutions like HQPlayer.

Yes, it is summer in North hemisphere.
Nope, NOS is oversampling free and digital filtering free. A quite an old artile explain this.

Upsampling on PC is prefered, as processing power is much higher. Do you think it solve a problem?
In the case of Denafrips (and perhaps Pegasus) not really. A reason is that if you upsample 44.1kHz to a sane value like 176.4kHz, Denafrips will still do linear interpolation to a maximum ladder frequency. To bypass linear interpolation completely you need to feed Denafrips with 32x oversampled data. This increase a risk of getting intersample overs, it will increase jitter 32 times and feeding a ladder with a maximum sample rate makes a ladder settling time a major contributor of another source of jitter.

 

[NehPets]

My dac journey. Scott Nixon -> Audio Sector -> Ciunas -> Metrum Amethyst -> Border Patrol SEi (2 wk audition which I compared directly against D90)

BP (TDA1543 chip based) is 10% more NOS sounding than D90/MatrixH but 30% less dynamic and detailed.

For reference, Pegasus and Ares I doesn't sound NOS to me at all.

Am I right in thinking they're all silicon-based, as opposed to discrete resistor ladder DACs like Ares & Pegasus? That's interesting - the most "NOS" sounding DACs are a product of lithography.

 

[viggen]

Am I right in thinking they're all silicon-based, as opposed to discrete resistor ladder DACs like Ares & Pegasus? That's interesting - the most "NOS" sounding DACs are a product of lithography.

Metrum is R2R though it's not tested like KTE and Denafrips has. The rest are TDA1543. Ciunas is TI. What's weird is not associating NOS with silicon since that's where NOS started. So far, there doesn't seem to be a true R2R NOS DAC. FTR, AKM4499 is a switched-resistor architecture.

 

[sajunky]

Am I right in thinking they're all silicon-based, as opposed to discrete resistor ladder DACs like Ares & Pegasus? That's interesting - the most "NOS" sounding DACs are a product of lithography.

The best NOS sounding is my Audio GD R2R-11 which is a discrete R2R ladder. In fact, it doesn't have any hardware that would 'enhance' sound. It is like Ares or Pegasus, but instead of a complex DSP capable FPGA, there is smaller logic array decoding matrix called CPLD. A chip has stronger/faster drivers than FPGA, but for some reason Kingwa didn't go even close to the 1.5MHz of Ares/Pegasus.

I am not sure whether monolitic DACs are better NOS sounding. In fact many have a vintage type sound. A reason is that most of implementation are not NOS, but use underpowered, now obsolete oversampling chips. You can still buy a DAC with one of the best monolitic R2R chips PCM1704 from Audio GD (recently upgraded to the latest MK2 logic board), but discrete ladder implementayions from the same company (like R-7MK2) start to take over in sound quality. And there is DSD decoding as a bonus.

All R2R DACs from Audio GD have an option for a pure NOS (no oversampling, no DSP).

 

[Mircea C.]

Got my Singxer Su-6 and managed to get it to feed the Pegasus I2S from the second try. Looks good so far, need more time to assess the benefits.

 

[Larry Man]

So where's the version on the CB?

 

[Larry Man]

Hi Mircea,

Sorry about the quoted post above, i am new to this forum so i have no idea how to delete my post with mistake.

I've received my Pegasus this week and my PCB version looks identical to Mircea C's. With help from Aoshida staff KK, the Musician Audio Technician confirmed that our PCB version is the newest. They had modified previous retailed boards all the way up to Version 8, and the newly built PCB are now without any version indicated on the PCB boards. Also, newer production boards have no Push Pin on the AES input connectors and the top cover panels are flat in the back (no more curvy styling). But this has nothing to do with performance by the way.

I am so glad that i have made the switch to R2R DAC. I like my previous DACs (SMSL VMV D1se and Gustard X26 Pro ) but they sound more digital than my new Pegasus. Pegasus is an excellent sounding DAC with excellent value, and it sounds very natural and with unique texture and details,. I understand that it needs more time to break in but it sounds pretty decent after only 20+ hours run-in.

 

[LittleToast]

Hi. I just got my Pegasus DAC one week ago. I have been listening to it. My regular DAC is the Chord Hugo TT which is much more expensive than the Pegasus. So to me, it is just to try the r2r type of dac. I am not new to r2R. Many years ago I use the Ack Deck which is a battery operated dac based on the philips r2r chip.

On the pegasus. It sounds very different from the Hugo TT. I don't wish to do a direct comparison to the TT as I have not done that AB comparison. I will do that next time. But just on the Pegasus. It is very quiet. The decay is very long. It is very transparent and it has very nice tonal characteristics. I feel I can hear into the heart of the music. In fact, I am not much of a music lover - I tend to like to tinker more with the equipment. But when listening to music via the Pegasus, the music often moved me. This is very rare. It takes a while for me to get used to r2r's way of interpreting music, but once I get used to it, it has been an amazing experience for me. The pegasus sounds like a high end DAC, to me comparable to the Chord Hugo TT in its level of performance, but yet different. I am very happy with it. I am amazed.

I used a Magna's mano ultra music player and the player is able to output spdif (coax) and i2s (ps audio standard). I have a short HDMI cable and has no issue using the i2S input of the pegasus. I also tried 24 bit 192 Hz PCM files and DSD64 file using DoP and there is no issue. I use a Chinese made preamp (not worth mentioning, as it has an amazing level of performance - I have compared it to the Gustard P26, the smallest Hegel integrated, the denafrips preamp, but it is brandless and no one will buy it outside china) and the Elac Navis ARB 51.

Musician as a brand is certainly a second production line to the Denafrips. It is from the same factory. Somehow they see fit to create a second brand that is so similar and that leads perhaps to confusion as well. But the Pegasus is a very good DAC, it is certainly worth a try, especially at its asking price. And now with discount in the US.

 

[LittleToast]

One thing I would really like to see is for musician to show the i2s pin configuration for each of the 8 modes for the current pegasus. Denafrips has such a chart for their DAC. But not Musician My player follows the PS Audio pin configuration and I know what they are. But Musician tells us to select mode by mode to find which has no cracking sound. I much prefer to match the exact pin configuration to be sure. I think there is no such i2s mode pin configuration table so far for the pegasus.

 

[T 1000]

Hi. I just got my Pegasus DAC one week ago. I have been listening to it. My regular DAC is the Chord Hugo TT which is much more expensive than the Pegasus. So to me, it is just to try the r2r type of dac. I am not new to r2R. Many years ago I use the Ack Deck which is a battery operated dad based on the philips r2r chip.

On the pegasus. It sounds very different from the Hugo TT. I don't wish to do a direct comparison to the TT as I have not done that AB comparison. I will do that next time. But just on the Pegasus. It is very quiet. The decay is very long. It is very transparent and it has very nice tonal characteristics. I feel I can hear into the heart of the music. In fact, I am not much of a music lover - I tend to like to tinker more with the equipment. But when listening to music via the Pegasus, the music often moved me. This is very rare. It takes a while for me to get used to r2r's way of interpreting music, but once I get used to it, it has been an amazing experience for me. The pegasus sounds like a high end DAC, to me comparable to the Chord Hugo TT in its level of performance, but yet different. I am very happy with it. I am amazed.

I used a Magna's mano ultra music player and the player is able to output spdif (coax) and i2s (ps audio standard). I have a short HDMI cable and has no issue using the i2S input of the pegasus. I also tried 24 bit 192 Hz PCM files and DSD64 file using DoP and there is no issue. I use a Chinese made preamp (not worth mentioning, as it has an amazing level of performance - I have compared it to the Gustard P26, the smallest Hegel integrated, the denafrips preamp, but it is brandless and no one will buy it outside china) and the Elac Navis ARB 51.

Musician has a brand is certainly a second production line to the Denafrips. It is from the same factory. Somehow they see fit to create a second brand that is so similar and that leads perhaps to confusion as well. But the Pegasus is a very good DAC, it is certainly worth a try, especially at its asking price. And now with discount in the US.

Do use a power cord that came with the pegasus?

 

[LittleToast]

Do use a power cord that came with the pegasus?

No. I use a pure silver power cable. An even better one is on its way. Will get a fuse soon as well. It is 230V where I live so one fuse is enough. I also now only use single ended out from pegasus (I will go balanced soon as the report here is balance out is indeed better as musician claimed), but I run the single out from pegasus through western electric 111C transformers before go into the preamp. I use the Chord Hugo TT in the same way as well.

 

[T 1000]

No. I use a pure silver power cable. An even better one is on its way. Will get a fuse soon as well. It is 230V where I live so one fuse is enough. I also now only use single ended out from pegasus (I will go balanced soon as the report here is balance out is indeed better as musician claimed), but I run the single out from pegasus through western electric 111C transformers before go into the preamp. I use the Chord Hugo TT in the same way as well.

Perfect

 

[T 1000]

It feels very good when after research I invest in a component(cables) that I upgrade the system, I am rewarded with a noticeable improvement in sound. Many times I thought that my headphones reached their maximum, but they would impress me even more on the next upgrade in the system.
Pegasus really gives a lot,but bad cables obscure its true nature

 

[LittleToast]

While we are at this. I know many here use computers as your source. It has pros and cons. The good w not using a computer is then your source can be designed for good sound quality. And perhaps there is less need for expensive and extra solutions between your computer and your dac to help create a better digital signal. And you also do not need your computer near your listening environment. Your can go headless (no need for monitor) as well. I am very happy w my magnahifi mano ultra player (mine is a generation before the current one). It is small. Outputs coax spdif and i2s (ps audio standard). It is reliable. Can stream local files as well as music services like tidal, spotify, deezer etc. Magna’s service is also top notch. They respond to email within a day. Amazing. Musician? I think they did not reply to my query on the i2s pin configuration table for each of their eight modes. Chord’s support (I am Chord TT user) is terrible as well for non UK buyers - Chord will not really respond to you and want the local dealers to respond. And my local Chord dealer is a large company carrying many many large brands and offer a minimal level of support as Chord is but one of their brands. I much prefer a company like Magnahifi who takes pride in what they do and are happy to help customers directly.