Curiosity Teardown: Theta Casablanca

[Bulldogger]

Theta did seem a good not too expensive (in their market) high end brand, the products seeming to do as claimed... Weren't the main Schiit guys involved back then (excuse any confusion here but I'm sure Jason was)?

Yes. Also, Charles Hansen of Ayre, Jim White of Aesthetix Audio, Dave Kerstetter of DTS.

 

[GXAlan]

Theta is the same parent as ATI amps and Datasat. They also manufacture the Monolith HTP-1.

“This means that units originally released from 1996 onward can now be updated to today’s standards. The Casablanca continues to be made in America. Each Casablanca is individually made to order and fully tested in the USA.”

The Datasat was tested here:

Datasat LS10 AV Processor Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the "high-end" Datasat LS10 Audio/Video Processor (AVP). It is on kind loan from a member. The LS10 is a shrunk version of the Datasat RS20i and came out in 2015. I think it costs US $12,500 but I am not certain. Read some place that Dirac EQ was...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Which is consistent with the performance of what is discussed here. Pretty impressive if this was what you were getting a long time ago.

In comparison to the HTP-1 or Marantz AV10, what you get is something that Trinnov can do but is rare for other products. The Casablanca V manual is not online but the IVa does have Dirac at 96 kHz.

 

[Bulldogger]

Theta is the same parent as ATI amps and Datasat. They also manufacture the Monolith HTP-1.

“This means that units originally released from 1996 onward can now be updated to today’s standards. The Casablanca continues to be made in America. Each Casablanca is individually made to order and fully tested in the USA.”

The Datasat was tested here:

Datasat LS10 AV Processor Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the "high-end" Datasat LS10 Audio/Video Processor (AVP). It is on kind loan from a member. The LS10 is a shrunk version of the Datasat RS20i and came out in 2015. I think it costs US $12,500 but I am not certain. Read some place that Dirac EQ was...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Which is consistent with the performance of what is discussed here. Pretty impressive if this was what you were getting a long time ago.

In comparison to the HTP-1 or Marantz AV10, what you get is something that Trinnov can do but is rare for other products. The Casablanca V manual is not online but the IVa does have Dirac at 96 kHz.

View attachment 340557

I believe ATI purchase Datasat after their processors were designed. Dave Kersetter is a common designer they both share however. ATI manufacturers for many companies so I wouldn’t draw much of a conclusion about the Monoprice processor.

The older Casablancas 1 didn’t measure as well. The Casablanca 1,s Standard dacs are 18 bit. The Superior dac was 20bit using BB 1702 dac.

 

[GXAlan]

I believe ATI purchase Datasat after their processors were designed. Dave Kersetter is a common designer they both share however. ATI manufacturers for many companies so I wouldn’t draw much of a conclusion about the Monoprice processor.

The older Casablancas 1 didn’t measure as well. The Casablanca 1,s Standard dacs are 18 bit. The Superior dac was 20bit using BB 1702 dac.

I mean, the Casablanca 1 is almost 30 years ago when prologic was still the main processing algorithm. Agree, but I don’t think ATI had its own processor except what is presumed to be the HTP-1. The Datasat LS10 has a very similar physical chassis.

Yes. I think the Monolith is ATI manufactured but doesn’t use any of the software from ATI. That’s Momentum. But I do believe that the hardware engineering is ATI as well and the decisions made were based upon Monolith’s requests.

This is different from the Integra (Onkyo) collaboration with BAT where the design was all Onkyo but the manufacturing was BAT.