Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC and Streamer Review

[barrows]

Nice to see the Tambaqui getting the independent measures here. Funny, I was just listening to a Khadas Tone DAC here (use it for test purposes). Despite all the love it gets at this site, subjectively, it sounds pretty bad... Although I do respect the engineering that went into it, for what it is. OTOH, I always listen to the Mola Mola DACs every chance i get (Makua or Tambaqui) as they are the best, or at least the equal of the best, DACs I have ever heard. Some might complain about the price, well, whatever... The Mola Mola DACs are at least the equal, if not better than, DACs i have heard at ten times the price. I am all for measuring gear, but for those who have actually not listened to the gear, perhaps, just perhaps, you might get out in the world a bit and take a chance on listening to this DAC, you might be surprised at what a really great DAC can do.

I wonder what we might see in the future from Purifi in the DAC area... I wonder if Mr. Putzeys retains any of his IP developed for Mola Mola... Considering the Tambaqui requires 3 SHARC DSP chips, plus the discrete converter stage, I doubt it could be condensed into a single chip, but perhaps a similar design could be built into a module for OEM use... Then this tech might be available at somewhat lower cost from some savvy company.

 

[Purité Audio]

The Khadas board doesn’t sound ‘bad’ to me, I have the Tambaqui.
Keith

 

[BDWoody]

Funny, I was just listening to a Khadas Tone DAC here (use it for test purposes). Despite all the love it gets at this site, subjectively, it sounds pretty bad...
for those who have actually not listened to the gear, perhaps, just perhaps, you might get out in the world a bit and take a chance on listening to this DAC, you might be surprised at what a really great DAC can do..

uh huh...

For those who have never done a controlled listening test... perhaps, just perhaps, you might find that your brain is easily fooled, and that you can safely ignore much of the nonsense in the industry...

 

[Purité Audio]

‘Barrows ‘ works for Uptone don’t you Barrows and who was it before that, he is a subjectivista through and through.
Keith

 

[Frank Dernie]

Nice to see the Tambaqui getting the independent measures here. Funny, I was just listening to a Khadas Tone DAC here (use it for test purposes). Despite all the love it gets at this site, subjectively, it sounds pretty bad... Although I do respect the engineering that went into it, for what it is. OTOH, I always listen to the Mola Mola DACs every chance i get (Makua or Tambaqui) as they are the best, or at least the equal of the best, DACs I have ever heard. Some might complain about the price, well, whatever... The Mola Mola DACs are at least the equal, if not better than, DACs i have heard at ten times the price. I am all for measuring gear, but for those who have actually not listened to the gear, perhaps, just perhaps, you might get out in the world a bit and take a chance on listening to this DAC, you might be surprised at what a really great DAC can do.

I wonder what we might see in the future from Purifi in the DAC area... I wonder if Mr. Putzeys retains any of his IP developed for Mola Mola... Considering the Tambaqui requires 3 SHARC DSP chips, plus the discrete converter stage, I doubt it could be condensed into a single chip, but perhaps a similar design could be built into a module for OEM use... Then this tech might be available at somewhat lower cost from some savvy company.

Between 10 and 15 years ago I decided I wanted a DAC capable of decoding the higher sampling rate files being put on the market. I had been using the reassuringly expensive Goldmund Mimesis 20 DAC, chosen by listening at a dealer.
I had 4 DACs left with me at home for evaluation. The most expensive was a Linn Klimax DS the least expensive a digital recorder.
I was absolutely sure there would be a difference and all I wanted to do was hear how big a difference the extra money gave.
I evaluated them using carefully level matched listening using the type of music I like and recordings I know well.
I was staggered to find they all sounded the same.
Then I engaged my brain. All of them had a flat frequency response. All of the had distortion levels way below audibility so I reasoned that I didn't hear any difference because there wasn't any, and actually there was no reason on earth why there should be.

I have discarded subjective bollocks ever since, it doesn't make any logical sense and it is demonstrably dim-witted.

 

[barrows]

‘Barrows ‘ works for Uptone don’t you Barrows and who was it before that, he is a subjectivista through and through.
Keith

No. You could not be more wrong Keith. I am a product development consultant for Sonore. UpTone is an entirely different company with no relation to Sonore. Additionally, I appreciate components which measure properly, without artifacts. But ultimately, since the purpose of developing audio gear is for listeners to enjoy actually listening to it, yes, I do appreciate a positive subjective experience! Note that the amps I generally use are class D designs by Mr. Putzeys, and I am currently building a Purifi based amp here for my system. BTW, I have been an audiophile since High School, and working in the Industry for 20 years, and I know how to do listening tests, thank you very much.

Additionally, the only agenda I have in coming to this site is to learn more. When I see posts from people such as Scott Wurcer, and Bruno Putzeys, I see a potential for learning.

I appreciate your posts usually, but a misinformed near attack such as yours gives me pause as to your reasons for being here? Are you in the general Tampa, FL area? If so, although I live in Colorado, I frequent the Tampa area and would be interested in meeting you sometime; I find that often negative impressions formed on forums, vanish when people get together and listen to some music!

Nevermind, I see you are in the UK, will you be in Munich this year? I may be, we could, perhaps, get together for a pint there!

 

[barrows]

uh huh...

For those who have never done a controlled listening test... perhaps, just perhaps, you might find that your brain is easily fooled, and that you can safely ignore much of the nonsense in the industry...

Or, perhaps if this test described below by Mr. Putzeys was done on the Khadas DAC, and other ESS based DACs, was done, one might see a measured artifact, which might give rise to an audible problem:

"In case anyone's wondering why I decided to go discrete, I actually started testing existing sigma-delta DAC chips first but could find none that didn't have idle tones. I suspect that is still the case. Chip manufacturers usually manage to move these out of the band at mid-scale (i.e. zero or small signal), but they show up in a THD vs level graph as a small increase in apparent noise typically starting at -20dBfs. Basically this "noise" are tones that are swept in and out of the audio band, frequency modulated by the signal. The simplest way of testing for this is to do a noise level vs DC input plot. The tones, when they appear, are well above the noise floor, even as integrated over the audio band. Using PWM as a conversion format solves this tone problem, but nobody is doing that on an IC. Hence the discrete design. I won't speculate on the audibility of this phenomenon but anything that is measurable is fair game for me. If people are going to shell out serious moolah for a DAC, least thing you can do is show an objectively provable benefit. Low jitter is also something I like to that's why we ended up coding our own ASRC algorithm."

I appreciate the completeness of Bruno Putzeys' approach. He was aware of an artifact present in (most, if not all) SDM DAC chips and set out to design a DAC with no such artifacts, this is objective stuff right? Instead of just plunking down an ESS chip, throwing it in a box in China as cheaply as possible, he worked hard on a unique approach in order to reduce measured artifacts.

Without knowing any of this, the first time I heard a Mola Mola DAC (Makua preamp with the DAC board actually), I was immediately very impressed, and felt that I was hearing something special, that started my interest in learning more about it. It is not often I am impressed in this way, regardless of the price of a component. I am grateful to this site for providing independent verification of its objective performance.

 

[BDWoody]

Or, perhaps if this test described below by Mr. Putzeys was done on the Khadas DAC, and other ESS based DACs, was done, one might see a measured artifact, which might give rise to an audible problem:

...
I won't speculate on the audibility of this phenomenon but anything that is measurable is fair game for me... "

So, a controlled listening test would be great...given that he isn't even trying to claim an audible issue...

 

[tuga]

Why the slow filter rolloff though? It seems against the design philosophy.

How so? As far as I know both fast and slow filters have trade-offs.
Ultimately it's down to personal preference.

 

[tuga]

Very impressive. Too bad "Mola Mola Tambaqui" is probably the worst name I've ever heard. lol.

I guess Putzeys likes his fish.

 

[Veri]

How so? As far as I know both fast and slow filters have trade-offs.
Ultimately it's down to personal preference.

No. The measurements show it attenuates quite deeply which is good, if it weren't such a slow filter it'd be text book perfect. But alas.
There are aliasing artifacts clearly visible in the 1kHz measurement which could have been avoided :/

 

[Matias]

Without knowing any of this, the first time I heard a Mola Mola DAC (Makua preamp with the DAC board actually), I was immediately very impressed, and felt that I was hearing something special, that started my interest in learning more about it. It is not often I am impressed in this way, regardless of the price of a component. I am grateful to this site for providing independent verification of its objective performance.

When I installed and first listened to my Makua a few weeks ago I was really shocked at its resolving power. It really is special. A few weeks have gone by and I am still amazed listening to my music through it.

It is probably the best audio purchase I will ever make since I bought it used for a fraction of the retail price.

 

[barrows]

No. The measurements show it attenuates quite deeply which is good, if it weren't such a slow filter it'd be text book perfect. But alas.

There are aliasing artifacts clearly visible in the 1kHz measurement which could have been avoided.

Are you actually concerned that those alias products at -130 dB are gong to be audible? Or is the remark just academic in nature? Looks to me like a pretty good compromise in filter design, reduced ringing with still good suppression of alias products. This is nothing like some of the very slow roll off filters which have first alias products at much higher levels. As mentioned above, digital filter design with single rate input is a compromise. Of course, if one is really concerned that those alias products are a problem, one could eliminate them by oversampling in software to a 2x rate with a steeper filter choice.

 

[Veri]

Of course, if one is really concerned that those alias products are a problem, one could eliminate them by oversampling in software to a 2x rate with a steeper filter choice.

True ! And yes I did mean academic/ "on paper".

 

[Bazz]

The Khadas board doesn’t sound ‘bad’ to me, I have the Tambaqui.
Keith

So says someone who sells them!!

 

[Deleted member 14468]

No. The measurements show it attenuates quite deeply which is good, if it weren't such a slow filter it'd be text book perfect. But alas.
There are aliasing artifacts clearly visible in the 1kHz measurement which could have been avoided :/

And Bruno knows this -- I was talking to him last October about his filter and he purposely chose about 30kHz for full attenuation to optimize other things in the design. He could've designed a steeper filter if he wanted to -- it's definitely not beyond his scope. The thing is, when you look a musical signal and how far down it is in level at higher frequencies, you can get away with a slightly slower slope. For measurements, you can get something to show up (i.e., aliases), but not in reality -- i.e., music playing.

 

[pozz]

And Bruno knows this -- I was talking to him last October about his filter and he purposely chose about 30kHz for full attenuation to optimize other things in the design. He could've designed a steeper filter if he wanted to -- it's definitely not beyond his scope. The thing is, when you look a musical signal and how far down it is in level at higher frequencies, you can get away with a slightly slower slope. For measurements, you can get something to show up (i.e., aliases), but not in reality -- i.e., music playing.

It would be interesting to know what tradeoffs/optimizations he was considering.

 

[Deleted member 14468]

Bruno actually told me specifically why, but until we're able to test exactly what he said, I don't want to discuss. But he had a good reason that was intriguing.

Doug Schneider

 

[mansr]

Bruno actually told me specifically why, but until we're able to test exactly what he said, I don't want to discuss. But he had a good reason that was intriguing.

Now I'm intrigued. I can think of a few possible reasons, but there could be others.

 

[ChrisUK]

I will have the Mola Mola Tambaqui for a couple of weeks on loan soon, I'm really looking forward to it, can it dethrone my beloved dCS...

Pictures and mini review to follow.