Aqua hifi La Voce s3.....anyone audition it yet?

The La Scala is a unique beast in the Aqua line up. It is the only one of their three dacs to use tubes in the output stage.

The La Scala does throw a bigger soundstage than the La Voice series and the midrange is a bit warmer and fuller. If someone is looking for a very analog like presentation the La Scala is the better dac.

With that being said the La Voice Mk III reperesents the newer more balanced Aqua sound. 

The La Voice hits a beautiful balance of having a touch of midrange warmth, a very big sound stage and a very organic flowing presentation.

THe newer MK III versions of the La Voice helps rebalance the presentation from being overaly warm and masking a bit of detail.

One of the strongest endorsements we can give is the fact that Aqua is a product you can purchase one time and be done. 

There are very few manufacturers that build a product like Aqua does, most dacs are built on one to three boards, usually a power supply, a main board and a streaming board or digital input board. to upgrade you usually have to replace the main board or trade in to the newer platform.

Open up an Aqua dac and you will usually see, 8-12 separate boards every part of the dac is compartmenanized into a discrete board, power supply, analog board, digital processing, filtering, digital input etc.

We know of very few companies which offer continuous and affordable upgrades to their platforms via both FPGA and hardware upgrades.

So if you prefer a very organic dac with good resolution, superb build qualityand an ever morphing upgradable design, look to Aqua to be a once for lifetime digital purchase.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Aqua Hifi dealers

Grannyring most people want increased resolution while still keeping a degree of musicality.

The fact that you are comparing the La Voice to the MDT is kind of silly these are two very different dacs.

The build quality of the MDT is comunsurate with its much lower price point. The Aqua S2 to S3 upgrade is hardly over priced as many of the boards are changed and you are essentially rebuilding the product to move from S2 to S3.

The very fact that you can take an older dac the S2 and convert it to the lastest from the company means that a prospective buyer can get off the dac merry go round which is necessasitated by companies making non upgradable platforms.

So yes the Aqua dac is not a cheapier Chinese made non upgradable dac and you are paying for the dac’s superior construction and modularity, there is a strong likelyhood that the Aqua Dac owner has kept the same dac for many years or will keep the dac fro many years, as the dac can always be made current, the MDT will be relegated to the dust bin of history as a newer dac of the month from China will continue to gain users looking for a good sounding product at a much lower price point.

As per swapping a $100 to $400 dollar cap nobody is using a $400 cost cap in a $4k dac, you won’t find that cost cap in a $7k dac either, the reason is simple economics a $4kish dac must cost close to $1,000.00 to manufacturer, with any supply chain each leg of the chain adds cost and increases the final price to the consumer.

Most companies today believe in having a dealer base to enable prospective customers to be able to demo and receive proper service, this is much harder for a non USA based company hence the tried and trued dealer to consumer model works well and costs of manufactuer have to be balanced, the other thing is just because you put in a really expensive cap doesn’t necessarily mean you will get the benefit of a radically much more expensive part in that circuit.

We would agree with you that changing that one cap may make a huge difference we are just saying that it isn’t guaranteed.

Christian Angnelli of Aqua is a very talented engineer if you look at their parts specified they are using some very trick parts allready.

Just food for thought.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Aqua Hifi dealers

The reality of this comparision is questionable,  Grannyring is comparing an out of date Aqua not an S3 the newer S3 sounds very different in terms of improving the overall sound quality of the dac while still keeping the tonality and soundstaging very similar. 

The point we were trying to make is that the Aqua dac is aninvestment grade dac which can continue to improve, where the MDT is stuck in time and will become obsolete while the Aqua can continue to improve.

Why don't you upgrade your S2 and then do the comparison?

If you read any of the reviews on the S3 they are all raves, the S2 did have a bit of excessive midrange color which although was very nice obscured detail. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Aqua dealers

Grannyring, you miss our point. The point is that a product like the Aqua or other dacs that are modular and are hardware upgradable represent a purchase once and done scenario.

The older Aqua S2 sounds good, the S3 version sounds far better, the case of a Dac like the Aqua is that even if it is $1,700 to upgrade the dac, it is far cheaper than selling the dac getting one half to one thirds its resale price, and reinvesting for far more money with other platforms.

As per losing the dac for a couple of weeks most Aqua dealers can rebuild a dac in a less than an hour the only thing that can take more time is loading the new firmware. 

The latest upgrade to the Forumla requires swapping out one board it takes 5 mins. 

Please understand the Aqua line is just one choice out of a myriad of choices the coolest thing about the dac is aside from its sound quality is the fact that Christian Angeneli is always working to improve his product and with an Aqua the owner's long term value is protected and the product can continue to develop as new technlogies are implimented into the platform.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Aqua Dealers