DAC - Aqua Formula or Aqua La Scala

audiotroy - What Tube pre-amps are you using with your 9h set-up?

We are loving the Manly 300b preamp gigantic soundstage, great tonallity,  super organic, just extra ordinary the magic of a 300b vacumm tubes in a preamp


Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Manly Labs dealers

forego the LaScala and STR combo.  Get a Chord HugoTT2 and Mscaler.  DAC direct to a 9H is leaps beyond anything you've heard.  The 7 watts from the TT2 will play the 9H to screaming loud. 

Dmance,  we would adamantly disagree with that concept. 

The Chord digital is uber clean, which is not what the Persona 9H need they need a bit of additonal warmth. We had Chord Digital for years, clean, fast, articulate but not on the warmer side of the spectrum, the Aqua Lascala or Formula are both much warmer analog sounding dacs, not as clean as the Chord Dave sound but much more analog like. 

Also the Mscaler can be duplicated with an Innous Zenith which through Roon can also upconvert as well as cross convert to DSD if your dac can handle DSD decoding, and then you will get an awesome Roon Core for the same money as the Mscaler.

We would recommend the STR going it is a great $4k Dac/preamp but not really up to the class of matching product that should be played with a speaker like the 9H. 

MI4 is using the Anthem STR power amp which is pretty good, adding a good tube preamp and then even better digital will make that system really jump up and perform.

We actually have MI4 same system Anthem gear and the Personas. we can setup any major combination.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Innous, Anthem, Paradigm Persona, Aqua Dealers

Dave and Troy,
I've been fortunate to hear a Chord MScaler+DAC combo with optical isolation on the dual coax interface. When the MScaler (and everything upstream) is on a battery and the TT2 (or even Hugo2) is on another battery you are presenting absolutely transparent dac-direct signals to the ultra linear persona 9H.
I'm single mindedly pursuing playback with zero RF noise intrusion to the DAC or amplification. When I do, any perceived brightness goes away completely.  Everything just sounds amazingly real ...and this is the only criteria to pursue in my opinion.
Dan