It's great to read folks have experienced long term use and enjoyment with the Havana and Pagoda.
I'd never purchased anything directly overseas before without going through a local dealer. This was a first. It was very easy to deal with Juin at MHDT for my Orchid. This give hopes if I ever had an issue with it I could send it back for repairs, if I ever needed to. The DAC arrived really fast, just as Less Lammers described.
The orchid seems to be well built, and I could tell immediately the sound was a different "flavor" compared to my other solid state DACs. The first few days of use was a bit of a roller coaster for sure, smooth, to a bit edgy, now kinda back to smooth again, and now looking forward to long listening leaving it on all weekend this coming weekend. And, of course, as Less Lammers mentioned (and others), could always start playing with different tubes. The Orchid came with one tube installed and a spare. I plan to let the first tube run in for at least the first 30 days as recommended.
Anxious to get a full 30 days on it and see if it changes any more. At 4 hours of play time, sounds real nice. What I enjoy the most is how lower grade recordings still sound nice, or better than any of my solid state DACs had provided before. I suspect that's the tube part kicking in, and tube in my DAC, preamp, amp all works really well together, still having great detail coming through but not feeling too laid back or not feeling harsh at all, like the nice middle ground of porridge... "just right".
