Digital journey turnaround

[Haselsh1]

Way back when in the early 90's I owned a Meridian transport/dac combo but never really left vinyl behind. More recently I bought a Marantz CD6005 player but then bought a Beresford Bushmaster MKII due to the reviews. This morning I have sat and listened to Al Di Meola's Orange and Blue CD via my latest Audiolab M-DAC that I bought a day or so back via ebay. The difference to me is startling it is so obvious. I now have a sound that is just so plainly 'real' instead of being highly contrived and 'digital'. This extra realism is truly amazing over the Bushmaster. Here is one investment that has truly been worth it. I think I can now consign vinyl to second place.

[killie99]

MDAC is very good but just watch for the dreaded bulging caps problem. My MDAC started playing up recently and I opened it up to find around 20 caps were either bulging or had burst, including all 5 of the large power supply caps. Thankfully it wan't too difficult to fix, caps cost me about £15 from Farnell and a couple of hours of my time. It seems to be quite a common problem.

[JohnNB]

Hi Shaun. I use the Marantz CD6003, but played through a Arcam rDAC and I'm happy with the sound. I originally bought the cheapest Cyrus cdp but it was fussy about what it played, so I exchanged it and spent roughly the same price on the Marantz/rDAC combo (£800ish) and the 6003 plays anything I throw at it really well. It seems built like a tank and hasn't put a foot wrong in several years! I am looking for a replacement though as my back-up cdp is on the blink, so the Audiolab sounds like an option. Does it play SACDs? Otherwise I'll be tempted to go for the last Marantz.

[Haselsh1]

JohnNB, the Audiolab M-DAC is a DAC only so I have to rely on the Marantz to play CD's or SACD's. Although I liked the sound of the CD6005 it is not even comparable to the sound of the M-DAC. I use the transient DD filter with the M-DAC by the way.

[dave2010]

Re msg1 - you mean the M-DAC is preferable to the Bushmaster? Just for clarification!

Is this the kind of thing? - https://www.hificonfidential.co.uk/audiolab-mdac-digital-to-analogue-converter-silver?language=en&currency=GBP&gclid=CMH5zrebv9ECFeUV0wodGj8KUQ

Different price bracket though, so perhaps not directly comparable - but sounds as though you think it is worth the money.

[Haselsh1]

Yes, just to clarify, although there is quite a difference in cost, I find that the M-DAC is hugely more realistic in almost all areas than the Bushmaster MkII.

[Haselsh1]

No, the link is the M-DAC+, I am referring to the older M-DAC.

[SLS]

Audiolab released the MDAC+ in June 2016 for £800, but are still selling the MDAC, £550 to £600. The MDAC+ is significantly better due to the multiplier power regulators, the new power supply almost doubling the size of the unit. For reasons unknown, the new unit is only £200 more expensive.

I bought the MDAC+ on spec. It is superb, as is the volume control. It's actually up for sale elsewhere for £550 as my audio has gone in a radically new direction of late. I was thinking of giving it to my son, but he wouldn't appreciate it. He seems to adopt things of mine he likes, like my Leica M7.

So, this
https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/512/32129271696_e62a473bb2_m.jpg or this? https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8014/29603220735_659c8bd962_m.jpg

[Haselsh1]

Ah yes, but mine was bought updated and secondhand for less than four hundred quid. Much more of a bargain.

[WAD62]

Ah yes, but mine was bought updated and secondhand for less than four hundred quid. Much more of a bargain.

Hi Shaun, which update/upgrade does yours have, I have an L2 'Toy', which I bought new as standard...the improvement in SQ post upgrade was significant!

Are you using it as a pre too?

[Haselsh1]

LOL, you know, really not sure as not normally a digital type person but I know it is a 'Lake West' thingy. Someone, somewhere is going to have to enlighten me ;)

[Ninanina]

I had the same reaction Shaun when I got my Audio Note Dac

I have been trying to 'do without' the AN Dac and free up £400+ of cash but every time I try I just cannot bring myself to do it as it really is the best I have heard cd and it doesn't make a huge difference what transport I use with it, currently using the Pioneer PD-S505 Precision to great effect... :)

I tried a Beresford but it didn't cut it when compared to the AN, but I guess you wouldn't expect it to at the cost difference ;)

[walpurgis]

I had the same reaction Shaun when I got my Audio Note Dac

I have been trying to 'do without' the AN Dac and free up £400+ of cash but every time I try I just cannot bring myself to do it as it really is the best I have heard cd and it doesn't make a huge difference what transport I use with it, currently using the Pioneer PD-S505 Precision to great effect... :)

I tried a Beresford but it didn't cut it when compared to the AN, but I guess you wouldn't expect it to at the cost difference ;)

Should one ever come up for sale Bev. £400 might (just) buy you a Monarchy Audio M22 series DAC. And that will outperform the AN DAC.

[Ninanina]

Should one ever come up for sale Bev. £400 might (just) buy you a Monarchy Audio M22 series DAC. And that will outperform the AN DAC.

Yes I've kept my eye out for a Monarchy Dac but as you say they don't come up very often.. I'd really like to compare it to the AN ;)

[WAD62]

LOL, you know, really not sure as not normally a digital type person but I know it is a 'Lake West' thingy. Someone, somewhere is going to have to enlighten me ;)

The 'Lake West' thingy could just be updated firmware...hence the different screen display etc.

http://mdac.referata.com/wiki/Main_Page

As for the hardware mods JW's MDAC upgrades continued to evolve...in order of SQ/cost ;)

'Sovereign', L1, L2, L2 'Toy', L2 'Fusion'...and now he's onto the FDAC (which is suffering badly from scope creep)

I bailed out at L2 'Toy'...:)

FWIW; Mine was one of the early 'black' MDACs, when upgrading it JW noticed the bulging caps issue, thankfully this was rectified during the upgrade...

[Haselsh1]

It turns out that to display the 'Lake West' sign on logo the DAC has to have been upgraded by John Westlake himself at his business wherever that is. That indicates to me that I actually bought a better device than was pointed out to me when I paid for it. Can't be bad.

[Audio Al]

I can now consign vinyl to second place.

Time will tell ;)

[struth]

Quite impressed with the little minidac im using, although ive not yet tried it in main system yet. Must try this when fit to see how it fares. Certainly good on headphones

[Haselsh1]

I can now consign vinyl to second place.

Time will tell ;)

LOL, I know that to get anywhere near the sound I am getting from CD via vinyl I would probably have to spend over £2k. That is just not going to happen due to some heavily rose tinted specs. I am therefore confined to accepting that my vinyl playing is just OK. That will have to do because the budget for a vinyl upgrade is currently at zero. Way more important than that would be an upgrade of loudspeaker. So, with that in mind, vinyl is now second to CD.

;)

[WAD62]

It turns out that to display the 'Lake West' sign on logo the DAC has to have been upgraded by John Westlake himself at his business wherever that is. That indicates to me that I actually bought a better device than was pointed out to me when I paid for it. Can't be bad.

By 'Lake West' sign on logo, I presume you mean the screen...

That indicates that the firmware version is vA.04 or above...from the wiki I linked to earlier

vA.04[edit]
First announced in #post1745472.

Screen auto dimming after 20s of no user action.
Available options are:
Always on
Auto dimming (Full illumination on key press, then slowly dims)
Auto suppress (Full illumination on key press, then slowly dims to display "L A K E . W E S T")

Mine was displaying Lake West long before JW got his hands on it...;)