A DAC that ought to be better known: RME

@paulcreed

go to garage1217 get 6sn7 and 6dj8 to 5670 tube converters they sell, then start tube rolling

it opens a whole new world of what the mhdt can do from its stock ge mini tube ... dunno the rest of your system but you should hear wonderful new presentations of the sound/music

have fun!

the rme is an excellent unit, tons of useful features and very good sound, especially for headphone users

very hard to beat for the $, for those who want a clear, upfront, somewhat 'zippy' sound

but in my experience there are better sounding ones for more somewhat more $

@paulcreed

maybe my use of the word ’zippy’ is getting us hung up a bit... i found the voicing of the rme to be somewhat treble forward and i would not call the midrange or bass warm... neutral and fast i would say, but not bloomy or warm in the least to my ears (there are significantly warmer-voiced dacs - metrums, ayre codex, mhdt’s in stock form, esp. with the we 2c51 tube come to mind)

i currently have a number of mhdt units (orchid, stockholm, istanbul), the stockholm i have is modded with pcm56k chip, vishays diodes and mundorf silver oil caps, other two are stock... i do find the modded stockholm to have the most highlighted treble and the best drive of the 3 mhdts, so i am not surprised your modded mhdt plays slightly brighter than the stock units - of course, the mhdt units’ sound can be further shaped with choice of tube, options are plentiful and the range of ’adjustment’ is fairly substantial

to me, i don’t fault the tonality of the rme... voicing is a matter of taste, and many systems and listeners like more ’effortless’ detail that a forward treble voicing affords -- my personal feeling is that the weakness of the rme is its relatively flat and narrow imaging... tonally i find chord dacs similarly detail oriented but their imaging is vastly superior, wider deeper bigger stage, simply more holographic, leaving aside tonal balance - the mhdt’s really excel at imaging and dimensionality...

this being said, i had the rme for about 6 months (before selling it to a good friend who is a headphone listener, for which i think the unit is really ideal), and i did not use an upgraded ps with it, so maybe i have not heard it at its best -- then again, i was using the chord qutest at the time with its own factory supplied switching ps as well...

@rtorchia

One of the arguments for upgrading, if that is indeed the right word, is that the fancy PSs are more robust. In the end I think upgrading a PS is like exotic cables--something that can be endlessly debated.

i disagree with this statement... power supply upgrades, especially from modern relatively cheap switching power supplies, can be very important to sound quality to both analog and digital gear... switching ps’s are well known to introduce noise into circuits they feed - makers of gear can do internal filtering and isolation and that minimize the damage done, but moving to a well built well filter linear power supply will usually have a positive effect, big or small

and for the record, rob watts @ chord vehemently states that their dacs will not benefit from after market lps units... but i have had 3 chords and they all sound better with one

naim rega modwright lehmann holo well tempered labs are just a few highly respected audio makers of various components from turntables to amps to dacs that offer upgrades for better sound quality through better power supplies

i think some of the good lps makers do offer a money back trial -- that makes the venture an easier one...

paul

when you get the tube adapters from garage1217 please note one important thing... the pins on the adapters are LONG... too long... you should insert the tube into the adapter first, then carefully insert the adapter into the mhdt tube socket only about 1/2 in, not much more... if you insert the adapter pins in all the way there is a chance that you can break a solder connection below, and then, once the adapter is removed there will be a lost connection on one of the tube socket pin solder joints to the pcb underneath...