Hello to everyone of you guys. I feel like I need to clarify a few things about Tubadour III DAC compared to Orchid. I've been building audio for more than 30 yrs. I tried all the DAC chips possible. Out of that I picked TDA1541A S1 - Philips and AD1865N-K as the most musical and analog sounding ones. I liked best AD chip and second TDA chip. Of course this is my personal opinion and it's not necessary to agree with me. TDA is limited to 96khz, AD can do 192khz, if that matters to you. It is not a coincidence Audio Note uses AD chip. Orchid employs TDA chip, Tubadour - AD chip. Now the rest of the design is:
Orchid:
- one pice pc board
- one power supply
- op amps in IV conversion
- one tube, dual triode used as a buffer, not as gain stage
- Chinese coupling caps in the signal path
- USB - hard to tell from looking at the board
Tubadour:
- 4 pc boards, separate digital, separate analog and separate power supplies using MOSFET
- 2 separate power supplies for digital and analog sections
- tube IV
- tube output gain stage
- Clarity caps CMR series, British made caps which are way better than Chinese caps. Base model Tubadour come with Clarity caps
- USB - Amanero upgraded with better clocks
Upgrades which improve the sound are Duelund caps and Z-foil resistors. Each Duelund cap is $238 before shipping
Z-foil resistors are around $13-22 a piece. 8 pieces total.
The whole design and architecture of Orchid are not meant for upgrades.
Tubadour is designed with all possible upgrades in mind.
Audio Mirror offer 2 weeks for audition and return.
These are my 2 cents.
Orchid:
- one pice pc board
- one power supply
- op amps in IV conversion
- one tube, dual triode used as a buffer, not as gain stage
- Chinese coupling caps in the signal path
- USB - hard to tell from looking at the board
Tubadour:
- 4 pc boards, separate digital, separate analog and separate power supplies using MOSFET
- 2 separate power supplies for digital and analog sections
- tube IV
- tube output gain stage
- Clarity caps CMR series, British made caps which are way better than Chinese caps. Base model Tubadour come with Clarity caps
- USB - Amanero upgraded with better clocks
Upgrades which improve the sound are Duelund caps and Z-foil resistors. Each Duelund cap is $238 before shipping
Z-foil resistors are around $13-22 a piece. 8 pieces total.
The whole design and architecture of Orchid are not meant for upgrades.
Tubadour is designed with all possible upgrades in mind.
Audio Mirror offer 2 weeks for audition and return.
These are my 2 cents.