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DAC - Aqua Formula or Aqua La Scala

Looking at upgrading my DAC. Running an Innuos MKIII (2TB) through the DAC in the Anthem STR Pre-Amp. My pre-amp is running to an Anthem STR Amplifier. Speakers are the Paradigm Persona 9h’s.

The DACs on my shortlist at the Aqua La Scala and Aqua Formula. Any user feedback on the Formula and/or La Scala is appreciated.
mi4
astelmaszek
125 posts
 
@dgarretson I've grown to hate the hifi world precisely because of people like you. Anthem STR probably with properly setup room correction probably sounds better than 95% of the so called high end systems costing $100K I've heard before.

@mzkmxcv Tell that to good portion of studio engineers that use Genelacs. I assure you, whatever you feed to a Genelac speaker with it's ADC/DSP/DAC process sound exactly like what you feed it, corrected for the room.

I'm sitting here working late in my other office, listening to Yamaha A-S1100, fed by Chord Hugo2, connected to Aerial 5Ts and the system sounds better than many of the so called high end pieces. I guess you'd consider A-S1100 to be a budget piece too.
dgarretson
2,588 posts
 

@astelmaszek Funny, I can’t think of anyone I’ve met like me. If I did, I probably wouldn’t like him either.

The Aqua pieces are simply in a different class of performance and price than Anthem. Moreover, if you buy into the R2R construct (I do and have also compared the Formula closely to Denafrips Terminator and Audio gd) it’s a contradiction in terms to pass that through further A/D/A delta sigma conversions.

That said, these days performance at the entry level is higher than ever. I have a $1K Tascam DA-3000 whose DAC gets quite close to its big brother Esoteric K-01X, and $1k Pass ACA 1.6 Class A kit monoblocks, that within their 10wpc limitation, sound not unlike the XA-160.8.  

BTW, you have a nice well-balanced office system.

phantom_av's avatar
phantom_av
319 posts
 
The Formula DAC!   then sit back and enjoy rather than contemplating on you should have bought the Formula if you end up with the La scala.
mzkmxcv
777 posts
 
@astelmaszek 
 
I’m sure the analog inputs on the Genelec are very clean.
audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,588 posts
 
Mi4 I think we've talked before,

We sell all of your gear including the STR preamp, and the Persona 9H and we have both the Formula and the Lascala.

We agree that the STR preamp will be a bottleneck as it is a digital preamp in order to run the room correction.

So you would be digitizing the wonderful analog sound of the Aqua. 

The Str is wonderful for the price but with the 9H's resolving quality a good tube preamp would be our recommendation then party on with the Aqua gear.

If you have any questions you know where to find us.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Anthem, Paradigm, Aqua Hif dealers
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