Musical Fidelity VDAC

[LeRoy]

I find this also when using the single ended connections. Maybe a tube swap would help. Have you tried the balance outputs? Makes for a world of difference.

As it turns out...we don't have any balanced output cables to play with and even if we did the Belles Soloist Pre-Amp and the Rega Brio 3 Integrated don't have balanced input connectivity. So, the testing of the Music Hall is over and done with.

I was surprised to find the M.H. to be such a large unit and is about the same size as my XRAY CDP. Anyway, no way I can give any kind of overall fair assessment of the M.H. DAC without trying out the different options for connectivity.

[LeRoy]

Dont know for sure but you may find the texture you are looking for if you can find the V8 DAC which has a tube stage.

frenchmon

With regard to tube rolling....that would be something to do if I owned the unit but the M.H. is a loaner and I would not want to be fooling around with tube swapping with gear that I don't own. As it turned out my connectivity options are very limited so the MH DAC experiment is now aborted.

Ya, the V8 has my interest and so does Poppa's recommendation of Grant Fidelity tube dac. Now it's just a matter of time and hunting one down.

I am going to keep the VDAC anyway since I have a Stello transport en route. Also, with the VDAC being a point of reference for comparison I will be better able to assess the SQ from one to the other. I think 2010 is shaping up to be the year of the DAC for me.