The Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC

[matthias]

6 hours ago, barrows said:

The Makua preamp does not use a "volume pot".  The pot controls the gain of the circuit and has no influence on the sound quality: it is an adjustable gain preamp design and the signal does not pass through the pot.

 

Thanks for the info.

Interesting that even with the adjustable gain preamp of the Makua the Tambaqui stand alone seems to be superior to Makua/DAC.

BTW, did you compare Tambaqui to DAVE?

 

Matt

[matthias]

2 hours ago, fheller said:

The Klimax didnt make the cut due to the limitation to DSD64 and my needs.

 

From Davaar 60 Build 193 (4.60.193), released on 14 Dec 2017, the Klimax (version 2018) is able to do DSD128.

 

Matt

[matthias]

7 minutes ago, Nenon said:

 

Does anyone know to what PCM rate Mola-Mola DACs convert to internally? Thank you! 

 

Asynchronous upsampling to 3.125MHz/32 bit.

 

Matt

[matthias]

11 minutes ago, Nenon said:

But in that case we would be trading a fraction of less processing in the DAC for more real time processing on the server side. In other words, hard to predict what would sound better. 

 

Interesting topic.

Grimm Audio for example claim that all DACs benefit from the upsampling to 176kHz in their server.

 

Matt

[matthias]

20 minutes ago, barrows said:

Yeah, not really, there is an important distinction here, the MM DACs are not oversampling by an even multiple of any known sample rate (1x, 2x, 4x, 8x... or 64x), the relationship is entirely asynchronous to the incoming sample rate, so no matter what rate one feeds the MM DAC, there is going to be some fairly laborious maths going on, hence reducing the processing done is not going to happen by much. 

 

And DSD128 and higher gets downsampled (from a sampling rate perspective) to the mentioned lower rate (but PCM 32bit), so there should not be much SQ difference (if any) between PCM and DSD signals feeding the Tambaqui.

 

Matt

[matthias]

From the Kii Audio HP

 

"Naturally, this means that the performance of the AD/DA conversion has to match that of the amps. This task fell to Bart van der Laan who has a long track record designing DSP and converter boards for high-end professional audio equipment. Kii Audio’s implementation is a runaway success: a complete pass through the AD/DA circuitry of the THREE’s signal processing board is entirely inaudible, a feat not duplicated by the most expensive audiophile standalone units."

 

So this parts seem not be designed by Bruno.

 

Matt

[matthias]

36 minutes ago, firedog said:

I'm well aware of that quote. Bart is the DSP specialist who worked with Bruno on the Kii. No one claimed that Bruno personally designed every bit of the Kii Three technology. Bart's design works with the process Bruno uses elsewhere: 93.75 internal sample rate and 40 bit. I'm pretty sure he also had a hand in previous designs like the Mola Mola and the Grimm. 

 

OK, maybe Bruno was involved with the AD/DSP/DA design of Kii and Grimm as well but I didn't come across so far of any evidence that the DAC design of these DSP speakers is similar or identical to the Mola Mola DACs. 

 

Matt

[matthias]

Interesting comment from another forum regarding the streamer board of the Tambaqui:

 

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/my-mola-mola-tambaqui-revuew.36513/page-5#post-916428

 

Matt

[matthias]

8 minutes ago, janN said:

The Grimm MU1 again..

Here is a comparison of the sound signature of Grimm vs Taiko:

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/taiko-audio-sgm-extreme-the-crème-de-la-crème.27433/page-1005#post-916228

If CP is right, the Grimm would not be my cup of tea but certainly there are other options.

 

Matt

[matthias]

4 hours ago, Vincent des Champs said:

Post in thread 'Cen.Grand DSDAC 1.0 Deluxe - ending point in my search for a new reference'
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/cen-grand-dsdac-1-0-deluxe-ending-point-in-my-search-for-a-new-reference.966809/post-17770650

Interesting!

Maybe you can include the XACT S1 into the mix of candidates. It is in same price range as MU1. The same guy I quoted 8 posts before on this page (a MU1 owner) found it much superior to MU1 (but he missed Roon).

 

Matt

[matthias]

2 hours ago, PYP said:

I would be interested in hearing the new MU2 since Grimm can fine-tune their DAC to the streamer.   Other companies do the same thing, but typically the streamer and DAC sit in different boxes.  I assume the very short distance between streamer and DAC in the MU2 is another advantage.  

Taiko offers also an upcoming integrated DAC for the Extreme.

 

Matt

[matthias]

On 10/22/2023 at 6:49 AM, PYP said:

I would be interested in hearing the new MU2 since Grimm can fine-tune their DAC to the streamer.

I listened to it under show conditions at this years HE Munich. IMHO, it was the best Grimm demo I ever listened to. Much better than in the former years with their active speaker set-up. BTW, it was with prototype power amps driving passively Pawel two-ways and their sub woofers.

 

Matt

[matthias]

2 hours ago, juanitox said:

sounds crazy to me that the supposed " creme de la creme" dac lile the MolaMola Tambaqui needs another 12000$ server to get his best ..  this hobby will always surprise me 😄

Maybe the server is more important than the DAC?

 

Matt