Aries Cerat Helena or Mola Mola Tambaqui?

Hello - I have not listened to either DAC, but from an engineering standpoint, they are quite different. I think the answer may be in what your musical source is.
The Aries Helene uses 2 banks of Analog Devices AD1865 NK chips which can process up to 18-bit/96KHz. If your musical source is 16/44.1 CD then you are fine, but if you feed the Helene a high-rez 24 or 32-bit file, you'd have to dither that signal down to 18 bits or the DAC will truncate it down to 18 bits. I'm certain of this because my DAC uses the same chip.

The Mola Mola Tambaqui is a more modern design. The description seems to indicate that it can accept up to 24/192 via the USB input and 32/384 via the other inputs. It also will upsample all inputs to 32/3.125MHz. No truncating in this design.
Again, I haven't had the opportunity to listen to either one.   I'm not saying that your decision should be based only on the bit-rate you're trying to play, but it may matter, especially if you have a lot of higher bit-rate recordings.  I'm very interested in both designs, and I'd like to hear both.

What is your musical source?
Dave

I highly doubt if you’re going to run into many people (if any) who have compared these 2 dacs side by side. Personally, I would never buy a very expensive product without audition.  If I were you, I would go with something you can hear first. You may not even like the MM, which will solve your problem, but if you do, I would buy it. You can beat yourself up forever over whether you should have bought something else, but what good does that do? The MM is a very highly reviewed product, which I assume will give it decent resale should you decide to sell later. Plus you will have the peace of mind of knowing you made an intelligent decision by purchasing something you auditioned and loved. At least that’s what I think. Be well and be thankful you are fortunate enough to be able to own products at this level.

Just one more thing that may or may not matter.  I checked out the Helene on YouTube and it looks to be huge.  OK if you have the room and the back for it, but size and weight may be a factor in your decision.  

Hey guys thanks for your replies. I now have Mola Mola at home and it is fantastic. More resolution, right colour of instuments, very good PRAT, and it just sounds right. My source is cd player for red books, I have big cd collection with titles not available or hard to find, and I also stream lateky more and more, it is so easy and comfortable, plus so many great discoveries.  Helene review here, it explains more about the topology of the dac. http://aries-cerat.eu/reviews

Dave USB output has 348khz/31 bits, and thats what they recommend to use with streamers. I dont know, is it enough to play highrez?  I am not technicaly educated at all, what matters is how it sounds, and people who have more experiences saying that tube RR dacs are playing more naturaly and are closer to realism. So that is what makes me wondering how this Helene will play. The sellers are creating poems how great this machine is compare to other stuff, but I know that is not enough, need to listen it myself and decide. Mola is really something unique and it is very certain that it will satisfy me for at least year or two, hahahaha. Hey guys Happy New year, have your dreams come tthrough

Congrats on your new dac, what dac did you upgrade from?

Divertity. From Moon 780d. I still not  have not decided which to take though

actualy brain tells me Mola, heart says helene, hmm, what to do? :)

I've compared both in the same all Aries-Cerat system (I owned the Tambaqui previously).  They are both fantastic- the AC Helene is more open on top with wonderful organic tonality.  The Tambaqui counters with incredible purity; S/N ratio off the charts, and detail without stridency- both have wonderful staging, but the Helen puts you in the studio even more.  I wouldn't hesitate to own the Tambaqui again, but that being said, Aries-Cerat is the next level, but we are talking completely different price points here...  The end-game goal is the AC Kassandra II- 'one ring to rule them all'...  

At the end I have bought Tambaqui, but if i get some more money laying around I will purchase Kassandra as well :) 

Hahaha totally agreed! My end game dac is a Kassandra II (when I have alot more $$ :p) Just watching youtube vids already enough to send me drooling to the moon :p Sometimes we end up wondering what good hifi should sound like, and I think something the Kassandra produces is what I would aspire to :)

The thing is, I am going from Tambaqui to tube single ended 80w monoblocks SE-833 and I think it had a great synergy this way..... going with great cables Kimber KS 1036 and KS 3038 bring so much resolution and natural and precise sound with so much air and 3d that I can not imagine to get more of that with tube dac.... but who knows 

 

Sounds great...yes, we already tubes in the system, that probably was a better step. Lovely music too...

Hi,

just a very quick note. We are the North American importer for Aries Cerat.

I have actually had both DACs in my home side-by-side and we have done a direct A/B comparison. I would say they are almost polar opposite. The Mola Mola is much more analytical sounding with tons of detail. It is super small and super well-built. Fit and finish is absolutely stunning.

The Helene is also super well-built and fit and finish is more of a statement piece rather than just another piece of equipment in appearance. Sound wise the Helene is much more analog sounding. The Helene has more resolution and harmonics. It sounds more like a turntable with the right source. It does not sound tubey, like the Lampizator DAC's. There is a clarity to the sound and when you hear an artist tap on the side of an acoustic guitar you can hear the wood sound on the acoustic guitar. The detail is more life like versus other DACs we have tested.

I personally have owned and tested over 100 DAC's. Most of the testing we do is direct A/B testing. I have never kept a DAC longer than three months until I put the Kassandra Ref 2 in my reference system. I've had it 18 months and it's not going anywhere.

One thing I always tell people when they're testing DAC's is to never underestimate the actual source that you're using with the DAC. They work together and the source is just as important as the DAC. When properly put together it can be pure magic.

Cheers,

Please remember "it is easy to build a system that can play music but very difficult to build a system that is musical".

Robert Neill

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