Mola Mola Tambaqui vs T+A DAC 8 DSD - mini review

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Many thanks Gavin for this excellent review.  Highly appreciated. Would be great to get similarly explicit reports on comparisons of the DAC8DSD to the Holo Audio May or to Chord Dave. In fact, I have plans to demo the DAC8DSD in comparison to Chord TT2 soon and maybe even the May. Let’s see.

 

May I ask about your HQP settings? Did you also try DSD512? In my early experiences with HQP, sinc-L, sinc-M and closed-form-16M are timing champions. If you have not used them already, they may narrow the gap further. Also wondering whether you had upsampled PCM before sending it to the Tambaqui ... if so, you might want to share these settings as well.

 

Also DAVE I expect to come with better timing than the DAC8DSD. Already with my Mojo I experience excellent timing but not the presence/physicality that my Metric Halo LIO-8 offers.

 

Still cannot believe that T+A was not able to bring regular XLR outputs to their new “flagship” headphone DAC HA 200 ... I guess this will be postponed to the successor of the DAC8DSD. Still this will lead to siginificantly less demand on the 200 I believe.

 

Thanks again for this great review stressing that value-for-money seems to be strong in the DAC8DSD. :-)

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Oh and did you use both direct to power amp? Not fully clear to me from your audio system description? ... and maybe an Innuos Phoenix could improve the timing of the DAC8DSD even further???

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Not sure if the Tambaqui is still with @Gavin1977 ... Is so, maybe it will be worth trying to feed it PCM upsampled to the max the Tambaqui can take with sinc-L and LNS15. This may widen the gap a bit more?? (Here with my Metic Halo LIO-8 the use of sinc-L with NS9 at 176.4kHz brings it from a 6.2/10 to a 6.8/10.)

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@Gavin1977Now will you get the Tambaqui as a successor of your DAC8DSD? Have you decided already?

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Thanks @Gavin1977. Indeed, I had understood that you find the DAC8DSD competitive ... but maybe due to the little uptick in timing I was still wondering. Good luck with your other tweaks!

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Very interesting. Looking forward to hear more about your DAC8DSD comparisons with DAVE. Also interesting will be to hear about the impact of the Phoenix on the DAC8DSD.

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2 hours ago, adelphi said:

I’ve tried connect T+A variable volume control with direct XLR connection  to power amp, in my system the SQ degradation is so obvious maybe around 10% SQ degradation especially on soundtage depth.

This agrees with my findings as well. However, my way out is to use the DAC8DSD set to fixed volume directly connected to power amps and to contol the volume with software. Using HQPlayers volume control, the SQ improvement beyond my Pre+Power setup experience was about 20% on the same scale ... and my preamp is the Ayre KX-5 which was a crucial element in my system prior to the DAC8DSD ... now parked on the side. That amazing SQ obtained when bypassing the preamp in this way was my breakthrough moment when it became clear that I will have to keep the wonderful DAC8DSD. I am still intrigued to try the Holo Audio May and/or the Tambaqui. However, the DAC8DSD still amazes me each time I return from listening to it.