Popular Post tedwoods Posted March 15, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 15, 2020 I haven't heard the Orchid but owned the Havana and the Stockholm2 and I now own an Amber 3. The Amber 3 is not directly comparable with either of these DACs, I'm afraid. mhdt DACs are cool, but they do have a "sound"... A good balanced one, with tame highs, which lets you get away with lesser front ends for sure, but a "sound" nevertheless. Lampizator is not like that... It's a true high end DAC, a bittersweet pill by all accounts, but if you have a decent front end (Innuos, SOtM, etc) you are rewarded with a lifelike and dynamic presentation which lets you dig deep inside the recording. The level of detail the Amber 3 provides is also remarkable: native resolution sounds like it's upsampled to DSD 512! Furthermore, the Lampi is an all tube DAC from input to output, to rectifier, while mhdt are hybrid DACs with the I/V stage being transistor based and only having the tube act as an output buffer. The 5670 tube mhdt uses is an ECC88 derivative with smaller plates and smaller overall size. It was designed for low level signals and to be placed inside tube microphones and it's a great tube for that purpose. The Lampi uses the ECC99 as input (a "super tube", as it's often called) and a 12AU7/ECC82 as output buffer plus a 6X5 rectifier (which is often used to provide power to output tubes, e.g. ECL82's), so quite different topology. There are also grave differences in the digital section, where instead of the more "romantic" chip of the mhdt, the Lampi has a modern cutting edge delta-sigma chip and a firmware updated Amanero USB board with its own 5V supply, which means you can run an unpowered USB cable with substantial sound dividends. Also, with the mhdt you get your money's worth, with the Lampi you get a sound that's worth much more than what you've paid... Finally, a picture's worth a thousand words: alecm and Foggie 1 1 Link to comment
tedwoods Posted March 30, 2020 Share Posted March 30, 2020 I was going though some old pics and I found one of my first "computer audiophile"system, which included the Havana DAC. Thought I should post it for some colour... beerandmusic 1 Link to comment
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