A few weeks ago I started looking online for a decent quality DAC at a reasonable price. Several items are available, but my choice ultimately fell on the Maverick Audio TubeMagic D1 DAC. Before my purchase, I contacted sales support via email with some questions, and was quickly and ably assisted by Ryan. I opted for a unit with the uprated NOS GE JAN 5670W vacuum tube as well as a pair of matched BurrBrown OPA627 OpAmps. My unit is part of a yet to be released series (I was only offered this unit after a few specific, pointed questions. It will be available for general commercial release soon enough) and total cost came to USD 284 (R 2585, inclusive of all costs) as at Monday the 12th of November when my order was paid.
At this point the DAC/Headphone amp is being used on my Lenovo T520 laptop, with the USB output connected. I am using my Grado SR125i headphones with the DAC. My very first impression is that the sound is warm, with a beautiful richness for vocals. As audio file sources I use a 24 bit / 96 KHz Studio Master recording of Mark Knopfler's "Privateering" disc as well as a 24/96 version of the Chesky Records "World's Greatest Vocal Audiophile Recordings" disc.
The headphone amp drives my Grado's with ease, with plenty of oomph to spare. The unit is now in "run-in" phase, with all my equipment connected, powered on and playing music. At day 3 I noticed that the system seems to have opened up more, with more punch and slam when listening to a bit of rock (3 Doors Down, various tracks purchased via iTunes). The system seems to need a bit of time to bed down, so looking forward to more giving you more feedback once the unit is properly run in. I tried a few media players, and Foobar yields best results for me. I love the fact that I can see the bitrate and sampling frequency of the source files in Foobar. Which brings me to my first minor gripe about the D1. I would have liked to see a front panel indication of the sampling rate at which the DAC is receiving and decoding the source data. After some initial sound concerns, I found that my audio chip was down sampling all data to 44.1 KHz. A quick settings change corrected that and yielded a far wider soundstage. It would have been helpful to see this on the DAC, as is available on systems such as the Cambridge Audio devices. My second and last gripe concerns the volume control knob. The build quality seems good, but the knob is a "stepped" unit, I would have preferred a smooth rolling unit, some of the volume steps are a bit to big for me.
My next step with this unit is to plumb it into my existing setup. I'll be connecting the unit via optical and coaxial connections from my Yamaha BD-A1010 Universal Player to my Yamaha RX-A2010 Amplifier. I'll use my PC as a USB source and have Tannoy DC6T and Wharfedale Diamond 10.6 speakers to test with. I'll use my 20th Anniversary SACD of Dire Straits' "Brothers in arms" disc, as well as Linn's SACD Sampler Disc, Volume 5. The unit will be tested with the "valve out" and "solid state" outputs connected to an RCA stereo input on my HT amp.
Will keep you posted!
At this point the DAC/Headphone amp is being used on my Lenovo T520 laptop, with the USB output connected. I am using my Grado SR125i headphones with the DAC. My very first impression is that the sound is warm, with a beautiful richness for vocals. As audio file sources I use a 24 bit / 96 KHz Studio Master recording of Mark Knopfler's "Privateering" disc as well as a 24/96 version of the Chesky Records "World's Greatest Vocal Audiophile Recordings" disc.
The headphone amp drives my Grado's with ease, with plenty of oomph to spare. The unit is now in "run-in" phase, with all my equipment connected, powered on and playing music. At day 3 I noticed that the system seems to have opened up more, with more punch and slam when listening to a bit of rock (3 Doors Down, various tracks purchased via iTunes). The system seems to need a bit of time to bed down, so looking forward to more giving you more feedback once the unit is properly run in. I tried a few media players, and Foobar yields best results for me. I love the fact that I can see the bitrate and sampling frequency of the source files in Foobar. Which brings me to my first minor gripe about the D1. I would have liked to see a front panel indication of the sampling rate at which the DAC is receiving and decoding the source data. After some initial sound concerns, I found that my audio chip was down sampling all data to 44.1 KHz. A quick settings change corrected that and yielded a far wider soundstage. It would have been helpful to see this on the DAC, as is available on systems such as the Cambridge Audio devices. My second and last gripe concerns the volume control knob. The build quality seems good, but the knob is a "stepped" unit, I would have preferred a smooth rolling unit, some of the volume steps are a bit to big for me.
My next step with this unit is to plumb it into my existing setup. I'll be connecting the unit via optical and coaxial connections from my Yamaha BD-A1010 Universal Player to my Yamaha RX-A2010 Amplifier. I'll use my PC as a USB source and have Tannoy DC6T and Wharfedale Diamond 10.6 speakers to test with. I'll use my 20th Anniversary SACD of Dire Straits' "Brothers in arms" disc, as well as Linn's SACD Sampler Disc, Volume 5. The unit will be tested with the "valve out" and "solid state" outputs connected to an RCA stereo input on my HT amp.
Will keep you posted!
