Mola Mola Tambaqui Measurements

[boXem]

Hi Fred,

thank you for attending me to this (because you mentioned me I received an alert).

Having been deceiving by "reviewer" several internet sites and wasted money while I was naive in the past, I personally have been very suspicious of the review-based audio advertisment industry (e.g. re. sites and reviewers which companies pay a lot of money for getting praises).

Congratulations for these good-looking graphs with a proper amplitude for the test signal!
(but, why no indication of the FFT sampling size, as others have pointed out?)
But, I am suspicious that this site is not reliable:

1. re. the internet page linked.
It show more graphs, one where the test signal is set at -20 dBFS,
and above all two where it is set at - 60 dBFS! = the same trick used on the TotalDAC site to make bad measurements look good!
While there doesn't seem to be any need for cheating and make the Tambaqui look good (unlike the TotalDAC),
these other graphs are red indicators preventing me from seeing the site as honest.

2. re. other reviews.
The site has e.g. a test ("banc d'essai") of a TotalDAC set costing about € 20 000 ( !!!!!!), incl. D1 DACs,
here some excerpts from the last page,
http://www.audiophile-magazine.com/bancs-d-essais/totaldac/totaldac4/

"These d1-server + d1 dual or d1-tubes configurations reach a level of high-fidelity, in PCM or DSD, which I have never heard before, in spite of my Lumin and my Ayon S5, and of course of my listening of the gear of various TOTL manufacturers."
("Ces configurations d1-server + d1 dual ou d1-tubes atteignent un niveau de restitution, en PCM et en DSD, que je n'avais jamais entendu auparavant, malgré mon Lumin et mon Ayon S5, et naturellement des écoutes des matériels de divers fabricants HDG. ")

"The Totaldac DACs are at the level of the best on the market, the latter having much higher price tags, yet with a natural presentation which seems to me to have been very rarely (or never?) met so far."
("Les DAC Totaldac sont au niveau des meilleurs du marché, à des prix souvent bien plus élevés, mais avec un naturel qui me semble très rarement (jamais?) atteint.")
etc.

I will pass on all the other super-expensive gear they test.
This is already too much than I can take, having becoming allergic to this kind of stuff,
but more than enough for me to know that, while the Tambaqui may not be snake oil,
that audiophile-magazine.com site is unfortunately snake oil for me,
and quite probably part of audio paid-review industry.

So seeing the Tambaqui tested on such a site gives me actually a negative image of this device.

Why don't they send one for testing to ASR?
It has become the biggest in terms of number of devices tested, internet ranking, visitors and of course rigour and honesty,
and the test is free!

All the best for the new year,
bidn

Hi bidn,
Thanks for explaining your position. Let me clarify mine.
I have not a single reason to defend Mola Mola, they are a future competitor of my company. And for personal and professional ethics, I will not publically criticize them either.
What interests me is the technology behind this product. There are not many DACs that use PWM for a simple reason: traditional schemes for PCM to PWM conversion are fundamentally non linear. Bruno P. has found a clever trick to have a linear conversion. I spent a few evenings reproducing the scheme in M code, and it seems to work.
That's my only point. There is a pretty good amount of engineering behind this product, I know it.
For the rest, well, implementation of the idea + marketing stuff + my ethics = no comment.
I whish you a lot of good things for 2020.
Fred

 

[Xulonn]

I have no problem with very expensive audio components that measure well and fit into the top segment in ASR categories. If you have money to spare, go for it.

However, I will disparage and ridicule very expensive audio components that measure badly, especially those that do - or would - fall into in the bottom ASR performance categories, and yet are marketed as being expensve because they supposedly "perform superbly".

 

[Jinjuku]

This level of equipment is for people who are already spending big money everywhere.

I can get that level of equipment for $2000, not $13,000. If you want to split hairs that level of performance can be had for ~$700.

 

[VintageFlanker]

Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC and Streamer Review

 

[anmpr1]

Yes I can. They have never made a successful racing car in their history

Well... that may be true. But what about tractors? When was the last time anyone plowed their field with a Lotus or McLaren?

 

[JohnPM]

Did you at least try to research what you wrote?
CE marking is worthless.

It is a self-declaration, meaning I can cobble together some electrical contraption and print the marking on the back. Unless somebody gets electrocuted by it and then reports to the relevant authority, nobody would bother calling my bluff.

You could equally well put a cULus logo on your cobbled together contraption, that wouldn't make it any safer. CE marking is a legal requirement for a wide range of product classes in Europe and the accompanying Declaration of Conformity has to be signed by an authorised signatory of the company, often a Director. Most companies use external accredited test houses to carry out the approvals testing if they are not large enough to have their own testing facilities. The Directors of reputable companies tend to favour complying with the test requirements over the risk of fines and enforced product recalls for the company and the responsible directors being personally fined and/or imprisoned.

 

[Ro808]

Amir, thank you for all your efforts.

Audiosciencereview is the missing link between the traditional (affiliated / sponsored) audio press and the large number of existing forums and blogs, by providing objective and comparable data, as well as a platform for sharing (subjective) experience and opinons.

Kudos to Bruno and the Mola-Mola team for setting new benchmarks with 7 year old technology.

 

[MC_RME]

1. re. the internet page linked.
It show more graphs, one where the test signal is set at -20 dBFS,
and above all two where it is set at - 60 dBFS! = the same trick

I disagree. The full level measurement is given as THD and IMD, so I don't see where they try to mislead. -20 dBFS equals music more than full level, so a valid additional (!) test. There is no -60 dBFS measurement, there are two -90 dBFS measurements, to show the low level behaviour of 16 bit and 24 bit data, in regard to distortion and noise modulation. These are fully valid tests again.

 

[Bruno Putzeys]

Kudos to Bruno and the Mola-Mola team for setting new benchmarks with 7 year old technology.

Thanks! Actually I just got pinged by the folks at Mola-Mola. In response to precisely that remark on my part they’re suddenly getting inquiries relating to "old design" etc etc... It’s odd that people might think that the development timeline should affect the performance of the product but there you go. To save my former colleagues from having to answer these queries, I thought I’d quickly resurface to respond in public:

The DSP and DAC boards (common to the Makua and the Tambaqui) were indeed developed in 2013 and first presented to the public in 2014. The response from the market was rather muted which was odd considering that new DACs in general quickly become hot property among audiophiles. It transpired that people simply wouldn’t consider a DAC as a serious proposition unless it was presented in its own chassis. Reviewers wouldn’t touch it for the same reason. We could of course have simply bundled the boards into a box but by then it became clear that folks wanted network connectivity and a plethora of other inputs. The development got delayed because by 2015 both myself and Bart left Hypex/MM to fan out and start new projects. Hypex/Mola-Mola then had to train new staff (Ruud, Jan-Willem, Sjoerd and Jurjen, you've read it here first), to take over the project. I helped oversee this from a distance as a consultant and must say am quite pleased with all four of them. The addition of a network input further forced a rethink of how what part of the process ran on what processor, which didn’t speed things up either. The finished product has been available for about 2 years now. Although I still help out occasionally I’m not much involved with Mola-Mola anymore. That said, I’m rather happy with the product as you can imagine.

Back into hiding…

 

[Matias]

I just bought an used Makua with DAC module to use with my NC500 based Apollon amp.

 

[Matias]

Here is an interesting comparison to the current dCS line of converters.
All are IMD 19+20 kHz at full scale into 100 kohms.

Mola Mola Tambaqui (Audiophile Magazine measurements)

dCS Vivaldi (Stereophile measurements)

dCS Rossini (Stereophile measurements)

dCS Bartok (Stereophile measurements)

 

[bunkbail]

Here is an interesting comparison to the current dCS line of converters.
All are IMD 19+20 kHz at full scale into 100 kohms.

Mola Mola Tambaqui (Audiophile Magazine measurements)
View attachment 45698

dCS Vivaldi (Stereophile measurements)
View attachment 45699

dCS Rossini (Stereophile measurements)
View attachment 45702

dCS Bartok (Stereophile measurements)
View attachment 45700

Wow, didn't realize dCS DACs are that good!

 

[Purité Audio]

I just bought an used Makua with DAC module to use with my NC500 based Apollon amp.

I am just waiting for the new streaming module.
Keiht

 

[Matias]

I am just waiting for the new streaming module.
Keiht

If it was DLNA compatible I would pay for the upgrade. Since I don't use Roon then I will keep my renderer in the chain.

 

[Matias]

Wow, didn't realize dCS DACs are that good!

Above was the current line. Tambaqui is as clean as a 108k usd Vivaldi stack! Not bad.

The previous dCS line does not have IMD measurements as good as their current line.

dCS Scarlatti (Stereophile measurements)

dCS Debussy (Stereophile measurements)

 

[Billy Budapest]

Wow, didn't realize dCS DACs are that good!

Their noise floor is 10dB higher than the Mola Mola. The Mola Mola, although pricey, is one-tenth the coast of a dCS Vivaldi stack!

 

[Matias]

Their noise floor is 10dB higher than the Mola Mola. The Mola Mola, although pricey, is one-tenth the coast of a dCS Vivaldi stack!

I would not compare noise floor from different measurements sources (ASR, Audiophile Magazine, Stereophile) because they may be using different averaging on the measurements, and this lowers the measured noise floor. So I would only compare noise floor measured from the same source (ASR x ASR, or Stereophile x Stereophile, etc).

But harmonic and intermodulation distortions should be the OK regardless of the averaging used, so the spikes on the graphs are comparable. Just make sure to check their levels on the Y axis because the scales are different.

 

[Billy Budapest]

I would not compare noise floor from different measurements sources (ASR, Audiophile Magazine, Stereophile) because they may be using different averaging on the measurements, and this lowers the measured noise floor. So I would only compare noise floor measured from the same source (ASR x ASR, or Stereophile x Stereophile, etc).

But harmonic and intermodulation distortions should be the OK regardless of averaging used, so the spikes on the graphs are comparable. Just make sure to check their levels on the Y axis because the scales are different.

That’s true, I didn’t take into account the different averaging/weighting methodologies.

 

[MC_RME]

They also use different analyzers (Stereophile an older Sys2722, Audiophile an x555). This alone could explain the difference in noise level.

 

[Matias]

They also use different analyzers (Stereophile an older Sys2722, Audiophile an x555). This alone could explain the difference in noise level.

Yes, but I seeing the excellent IMD results of the Vivaldi, with very small "skirts" around the 2 tones lower than 130dB, I would say AP Sys2722 is still quite good. From what I understand the 24+25 kHz tones should be images due to the digital filter used, so no limitation of the AP as well.

All this is highly questionable as it is way below listening anyway.