dachunter

I would like also to hear news from Ruben. New things came out since then.

Recently I have heard the new Aqua La Scala 2 and I am amazed. It has 1704-K chips and it is nos but not obscure sounding like many nos dacs. It's the first dac of the nos camp that got my attention. The presence was great. I will look forward to a better evaluation and home audition. This is it LA SCALA dac precision PCM1704-K 24 bit 192 khz AQlink

Hi again Ruben, Please let me know which converter this is? I am also interested to know if such converter also exists for spdif. Thanks for the feedback as well. have in mind that the latest upgrade in the Debussy made it a different animal; in a good way! I am eager to find competition. Of course I can't afford dCS Vivaldi or CH or MSB platinum or Trinity...sadly. happy listening.

Hello Ruben I had Zodiac+ with volticus which is great. I needed too better preamp so I moved on to Zodiac Gold with Volticus and it's great. I can say much better than expected and overall performance and SQ with built-in preamp displaced the EMM dac2. Mostly because I had to have an ARC Ref3 with the EMM Dac2, but the total performance with Gold directly to amp was...well better. Also saved money to upgrade in my main setup. I 'll come to this in a few moments. [please note: that Zodiac gold is not a better dac than EMM dac2, but in a system fed directly the amp the result led that way]. In the same time I tried Weiss dac202, AMR777, Wyred, Naim, Esteric D05 and D03 and many other dacs. The Zodiac Gold with Voltiucs surpassed them all the above (and not directly to amp, but with ARC Ref3 or Ref5 loaner). Notice that a good power cord is also a big step up. I found Jorma Origo a killer Power cord. Expensive though but damn it fantastic. Never compared the Berkeley though. So time passed and have the same thought like you to upgrade. Quite satisfactory the Zodiac Gold it is I found out that is a tough contender. You need to add much more doh to get better performance. After many auditions I ended up with dCS Debussy -the latest version 24/192 with dsd; also upgraded with highfi tuning supreme fuse and Jorma Origo power cord. To cut a long story short I kept also Zodiac Gold with Volticus (more minimal no preamp) for the second system and Debussy moved to the first system (with preamp). Recently I hear sirens to try new dacs; I am open since dealers bring them to me! If I were you I'd try the Zodiac Platinum, MSB Analog, dCS Debussy (demo or 2ndhand), Ressonesence, Berkley and more.

Finally I don't understand people believing blind the 6moons Srajan reviews. There might be some points but most of the times far from truth based on those adverse ancillary equipment who no one posses in real world. (Bakoon, audio solutions, boenicke, crayon, Aries cerat, trafomatic, mark&daniel and the likes - these matchings means almost nothing to reality).

I would welcome such comparisons but I can't see really realistic a combo with Platinum/10M combo, in that money category dCS, MSB and the likes are different animals. My primary dac Debussy smokes the Zodiac gold and Volticus or battery psu overall. But still Zodiac Gold (and Platinum) is a super fine preamp.

Although antelope's background in pro audio is great I think once again they did same mistake giving a fresh sample with no break-in for review. Oh what a mistake, any Zodiac user knows the phenomenal SQ transformation after serious break in. From my Zodiac gold experience and listening to many dacs in this category and Vega especially the findings of this review would be different between proper burned in machines. Vega's too dry sound kept me away. Zodiac Gold has a flow in music unparalleled and to clean but still not harsh. I only guess that Platinum should be better than Gold and I leave this in a future audition shoot out. But Antelope should learn to skip marketing rush for a review instead of a proper review. You see pro experience is not the key to everything. Also Antelope should work better in QC and support. Before this year's drivers it was a different dac (not better),

Excuse me but why on earth you are using a hiface converter on the Zodiac Gold? Zodiac has already asynchronous usb 2.0 up to 384 kHz. I use it in my secondary system with Asio drivers and windows server 2012 and performs flawless and great sounding. In many cases equals my dCS Debussy primary dac high frequencies and flow. Although Debussy is overall a different animal.

Regarding the Debussy there must be a bottleneck in your testing system. All Wireworld usb cables, FURUTECH , vue, and many others perform different with Vue2 and ww Platinum best contenders. Do not know about Vivaldi though.

I am very curious to listen what sonic benefits does the Platinum brings over Gold and the price difference is significant. In Platinum's price range the competition is tougher can't understand the price increase over gold?

Sound Quality of Antelope Gold is so much superior to new benchmark dac. And if you go amplifier direct Gold is even better. The difference is big although Antelope support is not top notch and Gold's dsd fail is disappointing. But in the end better sound is aimed for.

What is the SD card trick?

+1

Same findings here. You need 2 good quality usb cables to work right otherwise not sure it works well. After many tests I preferred with my ww platinum starlight direct to dac. But when I replaced the ifi generic usb cable, things chAnged. Many tests again and found that the best usb cable should come out first. From computer (mbp) ww platinum --> ifi iusb --> Vue usb cable --> dac. Also that way you get best parts of both cables. Ww platinum is more dynamic neutral and fast but Vue has slightly better soundstage and much better deeper liquid midrange. In the end all this blend together. So I am not so sure to suggest ifi iusb without invest in 2 very good usb cables and this comes more and more expensive. Still will try to audition other usb cables but can't afford a second ww platinum. Keep testing and let you know.

The news about ipurifier in about a week.