Mhdt Labs Pagoda Review (R2R Tube DAC)

[Zensō]

What the artist / recording engineer intended?

Sounds like we need "Artist / Recording Engineer" approved gear....that is gear that can actually provide the experience that was intended.

Otherwise who knows what they intended something to sound like...do you?

Oh excuse me while I finish making my appointment....LOL

I’m old enough to remember a time when “HiFi” still meant “high fidelity”, and most audiophiles were still concerned with high fidelity reproduction. Here’s a good definition in case you’re unclear on the meaning:

High fidelity (often shortened to Hi-Fi or HiFi) is the high-quality reproduction of sound.[1] It is important to audiophiles and home audio enthusiasts. Ideally, high-fidelity equipment has inaudible noise and distortion, and a flat (neutral, uncolored) frequency response within the human hearing range.[2]

Back in the day, reaching the above goals of “inaudible noise and distortion, and a flat (neutral, uncolored) frequency response” was relatively difficult (and expensive). Now, through modern technology and the influence of sites like this one, those goals are much easier (and less expensive) to reach. Gear that meets these goals allows us to hear the music with a high level of fidelity, in a way that is true to the source ("as the artist intended").

These types of “retro”, purposely distorted DACs and amps are not HiFi. They’re more akin to effects boxes, made to appeal to a certain segment of the audiophile crowd who, in my opinion, have lost sight of what it means to be an audiophile.

 

[Juhazi]

I don't understand why objectivists here so aggressively defend the maliciousity of Pagoda. It has been tested and proven and seen so many times that humans are very insensitive to harmonic distortion. I was surprised only of how little difference there was between tubes!

I don't claim that Pagoda is a good DAC, neither do I question that many people really do like it's sound in every way.

https://www.axiomaudio.com/blog/distortion
"Only in the midrange does our hearing threshold for distortion detection become more acute. For detecting distortion at levels of less than 10%, the test frequencies had to be greater than 500 Hz"

Here is another recent test where L/R asymmetry of distortion was not heard

Ayre Acoustics EX-8 2.0 Integrated Hub D/A integrated amplifier Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

www.stereophile.com

ps. acbarn just wrote this above my post (I added underlining and bold to inaudible)
"High fidelity (often shortened to Hi-Fi or HiFi) is the high-quality reproduction of sound.[1] It is important to audiophiles and home audio enthusiasts. Ideally, high-fidelity equipment has inaudible noise and distortion, and a flat (neutral, uncolored) frequency response within the human hearing range."

 

[pkane]

I don't understand why objectivists here so aggressively defend the maliciousity of Pagoda. It has been tested and proven and seen so many times that humans are very insensitive to harmonic distortion. I was surprised only of how little difference there was between tubes!

I don't claim that Pagoda is a good DAC, neither do I question that many people really do like it's sound in every way.

https://www.axiomaudio.com/blog/distortion
"Only in the midrange does our hearing threshold for distortion detection become more acute. For detecting distortion at levels of less than 10%, the test frequencies had to be greater than 500 Hz"

Here is another recent test where L/R asymmetry of distortion was not heard

Ayre Acoustics EX-8 2.0 Integrated Hub D/A integrated amplifier Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

www.stereophile.com

It's not that they are malicious, more likely just incompetent. And yes, I listen to music that often has content above 500Hz, so I guess I should get another DAC

 

[Newman]

No it can't be....is it really you Bob?

Didn’t you know…Newman’s first name is Neil? And a New Man is by definition, Young?

 

[Rottmannash]

Not trying to be snarky here, and I know subjectivity isn't a thing on the forum, but with test performance so bad, it would be interesting if there were included a listening test to at least determine if any of this is audible, and if so, by how much. The state of the data would seem to dictate such an audibility test verses a cleaner performing SOTA DAC.

I have the D90 SE- send me this DAC and I'll report back.

 

[Rottmannash]

We're up to 12 golfing panther votes.

 

[voodooless]

We're up to 12 golfing panther votes.

How many of those are new members?

 

[bidn]

How many of those are new members?

Maybe they are the people running MHDT, or those paid by them to write the superlative fake reviews?

 

[_thelaughingman]

Maybe some cave trolls just woke up to see the day of light.

My backspace doesn't work

 

[voodooless]

Maybe they are the people running MHDT, or those paid by them to write the superlative fake reviews?

I’d be more inclined to think those people “lost” money to MHDT and need to defend the purchase.

 

[HammerSandwich]

Because so many audiophiles are gullible. There’s lots of money to be made among the “Trust My Ears” crowd.

The deeper problem is the large "Trust That Guy's Ears" crowd, whether That Guy is a career reviewer or a forum guru.

 

[Spocko]

I just noticed from the photo this unit is made in Taipei Taiwan.
On their website, it mentioned "We don't ship to Taiwan"

Does it imply that this is only for export???

Clearly, the locals don't want to have anything to do with this embarrassment - so they call it "romantic tube sound from a forgotten era" and sell it to foreigners!

 

[alpha_logic]

Just like Conan the Barbarian pursuing 'The riddle of steel' I too have hunted high and low, having spent many moons pursuing the 'Magic of R2R'.
Unlike Conan though, I didn't end up becoming King of Aquilonia, but only bereft of treasure, and dignity : )

 

[paulraphael]

Bad design?

Based on measurements or a study of the circuitry? Or is it assumed that 'all' good designed electronics measure well and 'all' poorly designed electrical components measure poorly?

Imagine is a connoisseur of wine grading wines solely on a spectrum analysis of the chemical make up vs the actual taste.

I'd be interested to know if a DAC like this would actually be your preference in a proper double-blind test. It would be surprising, but stranger things have happened ... people are weird.

Even if that were the case, we confront the inherent grift in products like this: you could duplicate its performance (objectively and subjectively) with a design that would cost $25 to produce. It takes precious little engineering skill, and no expensive parts, to create a noise-and-distortion-generator with the same qualities.

 

[audiophileonabudget]

With such a large discrepancy between users' subjective listening test and these measurements, maybe the review sample is defective?

 

[ousi]

I posted earlier in this thread with the ARC CD9 (with measurement from stereophile), and also L0rdGwyn built a PCM56 tube DAC that measured much better than this with an "inferior DAC at THD -94dB" (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/nos-burr-brown-pcm56-dac-with-tubes.27281/), it is possible to build tube DAC that sounds great (subjectively) and not measure so horribly bad as this one.

Maybe not at the price they are asking, but it's possible. Producing such result while slapping on some marketing terms is false advertisement IMO. For that price bracket maybe going the usual route with semi-conductors is a better choice.

Come on, even the DarkVoice 336SE headphone amp measures so much better than this.

 

[Martin Takamine]

After mitigating harmonic distortions terribly the judges give Pagoda all 10’s….
wait… wait.. let me get up off the floor so I’m not reading those score cards upside down.

 

[amirm]

With such a large discrepancy between users' subjective listening test and these measurements, maybe the review sample is defective?

In every review with poor measurements, we see that wide gap between subjective listening out there and measurements. The fault is in the poor way subjective listening is done, not measurements. Or device being broken. Often I have measured other units with exact same results (I measured three Schiit Yggdrasil R2R DACs from what I recall).

 

[Addicted to music]

These products are made because there is a demand for it.

Buyers do not care about measured performance, only we do.
Buyers (the audiophool ones) want:

R2R (because they understand the principle and people believe it sounds 'organic' and DS sounds cold and lifeless)
no reconstruction filter (because filters are bad and not needed they think and negatively affect dynamics, the dreaded 'ringing')
Tube(s) well.... because they 'sound' more analog/warm can be rolled and thus easy to tweak the sound (the most wonderful sounds are atributed to specific tubes). For this reason the harmonics must reach audible levels (and thus high) and must have a certain spread (lower in level the higher the harmonics. The tubes must be visible.
Linear power supplies (Toroid, special fuse, special rectifier diodes)
must be heavy in weight (cheap stuff has no weight and heavy gear is supposedly less susceptible to vibrations.
No opamps so only discrete parts.
Expensive and large coupling caps in the audio part.

This device is completely built to these 'demands' and seems well executed.

It’s all there’s, let them have it!

 

[mhardy6647]

... gotta love the vanity capacitor labeling. That right there's worth a hunnert bucks, easy.