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The Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC


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On 12/26/2018 at 7:48 PM, Music Enthusiast said:

Impressive looking OCXO on that digital board:

 

 

DAC-e1524074077126.jpg

That XO looks like a Crystek module which is not ovenized.

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On 12/26/2018 at 7:46 PM, Music Enthusiast said:

Compared to the Makua, looks like we are eliminating a volume pot, along with some relays, connections and likely some gain stages as well. Should be a leap up in sound quality for less money. 

 

11415molamola2.jpg

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.

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3 hours ago, Music Enthusiast said:

So in other words it's a digital encoder? So is the volume control a ladder resistor type with relay or CMOS switch control?

No, it is a standard pot, but the music signal is not traveling through it.  The pot is used to control the gain, so it is an adjustable gain preamp: the pot does not attenuate the music signal directly, it changes the gain of the preamp.

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15 hours ago, Music Enthusiast said:

That's a pretty large unit for a Crystek. I wasn't aware that Crystek made SC cut oscillators. Please share a link to the SC cut unit's in their catalog. 

 

 

Screen Shot 2018-12-30 at 10.53.29 PM.png

The oscillator pictured on that board looks very much like a Crystek 957 or 950 series, same size: 14.2 mm x 9.14 mm.  As to whether it has an SC cut crystal one would have to ask Crystek that.  One thing, if we had a picture of the board from above we could easily confirm this as the Crystek oscillators are well marked.

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6 minutes ago, Music Enthusiast said:

It’s larger than the Crystek 950 series. And the case looks different as well. The top printed looks laser etched. Where Crystek stamps the printing into the case. 

Have you seen another picture than what you posted?  I certainly cannot see any of what you describe in the picture here.

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13 minutes ago, Music Enthusiast said:

I understand the approach. But the literature provided by Mola Mola says this:

 

 “The relay-based volume control directly controls the gain of the output stage.”

 

You can’t use an analog pot to control relays. You use an encoder for that. 

OK, so they use a stepped attenuator instead of a pot, it really makes no difference here as the point is the stepped attenuator is not in the signal path, it is controlling the gain of the circuit, and as such does not add any noise/distortion to the signal (the signal does not pass through the relays or resistors of the attenuator).

Point being being that there is not anything more in the signal path as far as the volume control of the Makua vs. Tambaqui is concerned.

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  • 4 months later...
4 hours ago, Davidny said:

Given this internal processing, which seems unique and to my ears makes the Tambaqui sound very special, I doubt that pre processing the digital signal with add anything, and more likely will subtract from the end result.  

But if you try HQP let us know what you hear, one never knows unless you try it for yourself.

While you are certainly entitled to having an opinion, your conclusion that the Tambaqui's oversampling is responsible for its "special" sound quality is just mere speculation on your part.  I would suggest that it is even more likely that the Tambaqui's conversion stage, and analog output stage is responsible for its "special" sound quality, as that portion of the design is particularly unique, running a discrete converter at 100 MHz and 1 bit (and any analog stage which allows the noise spec of the Tambaqui is special).

 

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On 5/10/2019 at 4:24 PM, musicfirst said:

So can someone tell us how the "lossless volume control"  on the Tambaqui works and how it differs from the Makua/DAC?  Other than switching functions, why would one choose the Makua over the Tambaqui if one's system is dedicated to a single digital source?

The Tambaqui uses a digital volume control, exactly how it works is only known to the engineers who developed it, and the Makua preamp uses an adjustable gain stage to control the volume (which is an analog volume control, as would-be required for its analog inputs).

IMO, if one does not need analog inputs, it would make no sense at all to choose the Makua over the Tambaqui. 

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  • 8 months later...
2 hours ago, Ran said:

The Tambaqui Ethernet input supports only the roon protocol which is a deal breaker for me.

One does not have to use the Ethernet input of course.  One is free to use a separate Renderer which does support one's preferred streaming protocol, and subsequently the USB input of the Tambaqui (or Makua, whatever).  There may even be a sonic improvement by using a separate Renderer (I have no experience testing the Tamabaqui's Ethernet input).

I would also suggest that complaints aside, I think most will find the asking price for the Tambaqui is quite reasonable (even if it had no Ethernet input at all), as the DACs which it competes with sonically are often quite a bit more expensive.

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  • 6 months later...
4 minutes ago, PYP said:

 

when a reviewer calls gear captivating and beguiling, you know he hears something special.  

Hopefully he means the music, as presented by the Tambaqui, is captivating and beguiling!

I have loved the Mola Mola DACs every time I have heard them...

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  • 4 weeks later...

There is another possible reason why Mola Mola chose to only include Roon RAAT support for their Network interface: perhaps they found that the Roon RAAT format was technically superior to other Networking formats for audio purposes.  After all, there is a reason the Roon folks decided to develop their own Networking protocol rather than just implement existing standards (DLNA, etc).

 

It also should be considered, that the built in Ethernet input in many DACs does not perform as well as the best external Renderers.  By no means am I suggesting that this IS the case with the Tambaqui (as I have no direct experience with it here), but I have heard reports from some users that the Tambaqui performs better via a top level external Renderer via its USB input than by using its onboard Ethernet interface.  This is no criticism of the Tambaqui, indeed I would own one if I could!  Point being we are in the early days of network interface DACs, and making a really good Network interface is not a trivial endeavor.  In the rush to add Networking capabilities to their DACs, many manufacturers are taking short cuts right now: this is no different than what we saw during the early days of USB interfaces.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 4 weeks later...
1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Agree. Even rooms made for audio have issues :~)

 

 

My only thing is this - how can one be certain they are hearing the DAC, the amp, etc... without knowing the characteristics of the room? More than likely one is hearing the room's effects on the DAC and that doesn't translate to my room, your room, or any other room.

 

It's all good though. This is a fun hobby and as long as we're having fun and enjoying it, that's what counts. 

I would suggest, that in the case of a reviewer making comparisons, the room stays the same and only the DAC(s) change, so the comparison should still be valid as for the difference between the DACs...

In any case, no one shopping for a 5 figure component should rely on third party reports to make a purchase decision, no matter who that third party may be.  I suspect that for most people, a 5 figure component is a considerable investment; one needs to hear the component in question in their own room and system, to have any chance of making a fully informed decision.  DACs at this level are available for in home trials, yes, it might take a little research to find the right dealer for this, but it can be done.

Please do not rely on third party advise when making critical sound quality decisions like this.

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1 minute ago, yyz said:

 @Barrows I have the impression you have heard a lot of DACs. Have you heard the Benchmark DAC3 too? If the Tambaqui is a 10/10 in an arbitrary scale where would the DAC3 fit in from your perspective or anyone else who has heard both. 

I have not heard the DAC 3.  I have heard the previous Benchmark models and have not been impressed-to me they have sounded like a lot of ESS based DACs: highly resolved with low noise, but lacking in tone and timbral accuracy.  I have also built a number of ESS based DACs, and have experienced that there are ways to get better sound out of them, but few companies (besides Ayre) appear to use the ESS chips in the best ways...

In any case, the Tambaqui is better than any of the ESS based DACs I have heard, including my own DIY efforts.  

 

After many years of listening to a lot of different DACs, and building about a half dozen or so DIY efforts (including a DSC-2, discrete DSD DAC based on Jussi's approach), I have come to the conclusion that there appear to be real advantages to DACs which use discrete conversion methods (as opposed to DAC chips) and DACs which do their conversion to analog on a DSD bit stream (I am not suggesting that such an approach is always the best though...)  DACs like the Tambaqui, EMM labs, Playback Designs, PS audio DS, Holo audio (DSD section), Bricasti (using their discrete DSD section) and others which use a discrete DSD conversion approach often seem to have an advantage to me.  I guess this makes sense from an engineering perspective as well: why use a multi-purpose DAC chip, designed to suit numerous commercial applications, with many unnecessary features (internal DSP), when one can just design a really good, discrete conversion stage, which does exactly what the designer wants it to, without having to adapt one's approach to the various "features" included in the the DAC chips from the major providers (although I do think it may be possible to engineer a really good DSD based DAC using the newish AKM 4499 chip, using its "direct DSD" conversion path, which skips all the onboard DSP of the chip-hopefully the fire at AKM will not cause a shortage of chips for too long).

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12 minutes ago, yyz said:

You should add the non-chip based Rockna (sp?) and AudioByte from the same guys out in Romania.

Nope, those are PCM DACs, not DSD.  They use multibit R2R conversion schemes which are inherently flawed (although some have learned how to compensate for those flaws adequately in some DACs).

My preference is for conversion stages which operate on single bit streams (DSD) with a discrete conversion approach.

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2 hours ago, MikeJazz said:

 

Hi Barrows, how does your DSD-2 compares to the DAC's you mentioned?

Would you say it can get you 80% of the qualities of the other mentioned DSD DAC's or is it much further away?

And is there a clear path to bring a DSD-2 closer, or it just makes sense to go for a complete solution instead of the DIY path?

I agree with you, most ESS implementations sound "accurate" for the first listenings, but lack tone and timbre, and some color "saturation" like the LH Labs dac I have at home (I rarely listen to it).

I am not certain as to this comparison right now.  My DSC-2 implementation has never been "perfect", and every implementation is different.  I will say, that the DSC style approach is what I would go with if I were the product development leader on a team trying to produce a new DAC design for commercial purposes.  The question for me is: there are a handful of DSC DAC PCBs available for DIY here and there, but many of them have some "problems", and there are also some measurements for some of these boards, and these measurements also appear to show some "problems" which would really need to be ironed out to make it "perfect".  When one is dealing with DIY, the boards are often developed by hobbyists, who, not being professionals, may not have enough experience and knowledge to produce the best implementation of the DSC concept.  My feeling after listening to a handful of DACs using the DSC style approach, is that this approach may be the one most likely to produce the sound qualities I am looking for, but I am still waiting for a "perfect" implementation to appear for DIY.

So, long story!  My DSC-2 version is still under active development, and does sound really good, but it still has some practical limitations right now, and I am not knowledgable enough on my own to make it "perfect".

 

Right now I am really loving my Bricasti M3...  I use it only via its discrete single bit DSD conversion path, using the M3's onboard analog volume control, and with DSD 256 input only.  I would love to hear a Holo Audio May sometime, but it has no volume control, and does not really have enough output level to use in my system via its DSD path, without a preamp.  I have thoroughly tested the preamp/no preamp situation, and am fully committed to the advantages of going amp direct.  If the May had at least 4 V output with DSD I would give it a shot here with software volume control, but the low output with DSD is just not enough in my system.

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2 hours ago, yyz said:

 

If you get the chance, try the Benchmark LA4 or HPA4 preamp into your chain. They have a 30 day home trial for those people who are curious. I found it was a better sound than direct to amp. It is quiet as the Mola Mola Makua but cost$ 2500. I think it is an incredible component that will help most DACs. It will not make your DAC noisier and likely make you volume control sound better.

Nope, I have thoroughly and exhaustively tested this and have absolute zero interest in going backwards here.

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  • 1 month later...

Yikes!

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