Mola Mola Pre/dac review compared to DAVE dac

[Perfect sense]

4 hours ago, john925 said:

 

Hi,

 

Could you share more on Makua as Preamp only?

Could it be better than Audio Research Reference 5 se?

 

Thank you.

 

John

 

 

Hos would you define ”better”? If neutrality, transparency, resolution and definition are qualities of high priority, the Makua is certainly superior to the ARC Ref. 5SE or 6.

 

/ Marcus, www.perfect-sense.se

[Perfect sense]

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[Perfect sense]

The big little fish has landed.

 

/ Marcus, www.perfect-sense.se

 

 

[Perfect sense]

14 minutes ago, tdimler said:

Do I understand correctly that the display shows volume attenuation level?

 

That's absolutely correct.

[Perfect sense]

Well, we've got an old (Hyperion) as well as a new (Perfect sense) account unfortunately. I will try and use the new one from now on to avoid confusion

[Perfect sense]

I wish I had more time comparing DACs during the holidays. Unfortunately I don't .

 

All I can say at this point is that it holds it's ground against anything that I've had here up towards the €20.000 / $22.000 mark at least. In general terms that is. There's no "best" of anything. This is not a DAC that should be considered expensive in relation to offerings within the €5-10.000 price range. It's rather a DAC (etc.) that should be compared to more costly options.

 

Please allow me to come back with some further experiences along the way.

 

/ Marcus, www.perfect-sense.se

[Perfect sense]

10 minutes ago, Music Enthusiast said:

Do you sell any DAC's above the €20.000 mark?

 

Yes - APL DSD-MR, CH Precision C1, Playback Design Dream series and MSB Premiere DAC.

 

/ Marcus, www.perfect-sense.se

[Perfect sense]

15 minutes ago, Music Enthusiast said:

So if you were to publicly announce that this 10K DAC beats all of those 20K+ DAC's that you also sell, would that be good for sales of all of the other DAC's?

 

Considering you make a profit based on % of the sale cost, it wouldn't be in your best interest. And I can imagine that APL, CH Precision, Playback designs, and MSB would frown upon it as well.  

 

Well, if you're not interested in my opinion just scroll past my posts :).

 

On the one hand, I do offer them all which makes me somehow biased. On the other, I do have access to them actually being able to compare. People who know me knows that I'm always doing my best to give an honest opinion. 

 

Again, there's no "best" DAC out there. There are different options though for different budgets, systems, ears and preferences.

 

/ Marcus, www.perfect-sense.se

 

[Perfect sense]

1 minute ago, Music Enthusiast said:

This is why a dealer's impressions must be taken with a grain of salt. They will always say it's the best DAC up to the price point of their next more expensive DAC. If they don't it's a conflict of interest and they may get an angry phone call from their distributor. 

 

Well, that's never happened during my years in the business, and I'm rather open with my believes . We're also the distributor/importer for some of the brands mentioned btw.

 

/ Marcus, www.perfect-sense.se

[Perfect sense]

4 minutes ago, Music Enthusiast said:

This is the answer I was expecting. Because as a representative of several brands, you don't have the option to give an honest public opinion if you did feel one of your cheaper DAC's slaughtered a more expensive one. 

 

Nothing will ever get slaughtered on this level of engineering. 

 

As a consumer, you should weight the opinions of distributors, dealers, reviewers and fellow enthusiasts at an early stage in your search. The next step is to audition the products that speaks to you, trying to ignore what other people might think completely (including me).

 

/ Marcus, www.perfect-sense.se

[Perfect sense]

2 minutes ago, Music Enthusiast said:

Yes useless information unless it comes from someone who has absolutely nothing to lose by offering a completely honest, unbiased opinion. 

 

...and who could that be? No one is the answer.

 

/ Marcus, www.perfect-sense.se

[Perfect sense]

3 minutes ago, presmara said:

I 

 

The Tambaqui did sound very nice, very dynamic, punchy, transparent, not aggressive and had the best implementation of a digital volume control that I have heard. Prior to buy the Makua I had listened to the DAVE and did not like its digital attenuation at all - I found this to be a very aggressive sounding DAC in the system it was playing - I was surprised after all the rave reviews. I had a friend who bought the DAVE new and sold it 12 months later for 40% less than he paid - why did he sell it- because it was too aggressive in his system. Another friend of mine was going to buy the DAVE and got both the DAVE and the Makua at his home along with the rest of his $100k system and bought the Makua for the same reasons as expressive above - the natural organic flow of the music.

 

This is 100% in line with my observations and experiences as well here after trying out Chord DAVE shortly after it was released. The Tambaqui is a different animal offering a level of resolution, transparency, speed and dynamics that easily compares with or improves upon the Chord reference DAC, while at the same time being much more fluid and liquid.

 

/ Marcus, www.perfect-sense.se