[protoss]

Looking for the warmest, darkest, tube-ish, non-bright, musical, euphoric, blackish, coloration DAC of all time?

Can anyone name me the warmest dac they heard?

 

[jonathan c]

Looking for the warmest, darkest, tube-ish, non-bright, musical, euphoric, blackish, coloration DAC of all time?

Can anyone name me the warmest dac they heard?

I will start: Border Patrol DAC (SE version). [I owned this for a few years]

 

[protoss]

Border Patrol DAC

Interesting, Steve raved about this I remember on his YouTube video. So, it's a very warm color dac huh.

 

[jonathan c]

Interesting, Steve raved about this I remember on his YouTube video. So, it's a very warm color dac huh.

It’s organic, not harsh, not glarey, leans towards warmth (not syrupy).

 

[m-i-c-k-e-y]

Try a Musical Paradise MP-D2 MK3 DELUXE and tune it by placing the warmest/darkest tubes and capacitors to your liking.

 

[protoss]

Only tube DACs that will give the warmth?

Has anyone heard the Rega Dac R?

 

[Doug2507]

Why not just get a good dac then change flavour to suit with preamp?

 

[protoss]

Liquid Spark
Chord Mojo
Most NOS Dacs
Most R2R Dacs

Anything, that has the absolute coloration, warmth, thick sound?

 

[protoss]

Why not just get a good dac then change flavour to suit with preamp?

True, just trying to maybe cut down other items.

Preamp is somewhat cheating.

 

[Whazzzup]

Turned up the heat to 92 f , so chord is for now

 

[protoss]

Turned up the heat to 92 f

 

[protoss]

92 f

Aren't you Canadian? They use Celsius.
Blasphemous!

 

[trollchu]

True, just trying to maybe cut down other items.

Preamp is somewhat cheating.

I would also say that the Border Patrol leans pleasantly warm, but I wouldn't claim it dark or having a particularly black background. I have a xDuoo MT-603 coming in the mail today or tomorrow that I was planning in running from my BP and I have a pair of dark and warm Sylvanias, I could let you know how that goes if you don't mind me cheating.

I think the xDuoo MT-603 was a pretty ignored product because it got marketed as a preamplifier, but it's actually a tube buffer with no amplification stage. If it's good, it really has no competition because the only other recent and similar product (that I know of) is the Ifi Micro iTube Tube Buffer and that got discontinued a while back.

If you ask me, it looks like the right cheat code and I don't mind cheating

 

[trollchu]

@protoss

The MT-603 did arrive today and I set it up with the Sylvania. It did darken the Border Patrol, blacken the background more, and made the already warm low end much smoother, mostly well welcomed typical tube stuff; the most notable thing I caught was that it seemed to have a drastic effect on the staging of the Border Patrol.

Normally, to me, the BP has a somewhat close stage that I wouldn't describe as forward, but more so like being in a small venue with live music being played; some place like a jazz club or a bar, where elements of music are close enough to be visceral, yet not in your face. Someone else could disagree with me, but I would liken it's staging to sharing the character of live music. With the MT-603 in the chain, there's more space to the stage without a perceived change in resolution. Some instruments, especially drums, are consistently further away in the mix without being less audible, nor unnatural, and in songs I am very familiar with, I found it often brought my attention to things in the mix that I wouldn't normally focus on (Edit: Hearing it with a pop track, it's more like it's tweaked the layers of the recording). It's slightly bigger than the small venue stage I described.

This is all based on two hours listening, but I feel like this has made what's already a very engaging amp dac, slightly more different and engaging.

 

[Whitigir]

Liquid Spark
Chord Mojo
Most NOS Dacs
Most R2R Dacs

Anything, that has the absolute coloration, warmth, thick sound?

Have you tried the Sony TA-ZH1ES ?