[Mariusz]

I have heard this DAC, and IMO it is a killer product.  I have no idea what is inside and how it does what it does, I don't care.  For me it is about the sound quality and the Tranquility gets it done in spades.

Agree.
On the other hand, I've heard components with killer spects and tons of white paper which sounded average at best.

I am sure time will tell the story of Tranquility DAC.
Personally, I wish db audio labs success with their new product.

Best
Mariusz

[srclose]

I had a limited time to listen to the Tranquility at RMAF, but I heard a few tracks after it was substituted for the modified LiteAudio in the Gr-Research room.  There was a clear and obvious improvement whatever the finer discriminations might have been.  From my perspective, I have every right to ask questions of a manufacturer, the manufacturer has every right to tell me everything or nothing, then I have every right to boycott the product if I don't like their response, or purchase it regardless of their response.  I don't think it's pejorative for me to ask or for them to not respond.  I do think I can learn something from having an interchange and in some cases might shy away from someone that is not forthcoming and in other cases respect someone that acts on their principles and does not cater to those offering criticisms.  I've spent very little time on other forums, but I've seen a positive impact on many occasions from moderator input, whether perfect or not, and have the impression that it offers more than it detracts, at least in this site. 

[pardales]

Thanks to all who have actually heard the DAC and reported on their impressions--hopefully more to come, including my own impressions in a week or so once I have some hours on the DAC.

Thanks to the manufacturer who has made several long posts explaining much about their company, product, and philosophy.

[TheChairGuy]

Thank you for that post, srclose....it encapsulated my thoughts well.

Let's just keep to the topic of the Tranquility DAC by db Audio Labs and dispense with all else here regarding possible disapproval of marketing practices therein. You don't have to buy and they/he doesn't have to say much about it - you'll decide if the info that is out there is sufficient for you to plunk $1295 (special AC price) down for a new DAC.

I'm no technophile, so the information provided thus far is more than enough for me - personally speaking only.

John / co-Facilitator

[newzooreview]

I also just received my Tranquility DAC.

1. Eric has been extremely helpful and professional in all of my communications. Customer service has been excellent, and when I mistakenly thought there might have been some damage in shipping he immediately got back to me with a range of options that could resolve the issue. It turned out there was no issue.

2. In the process of troubleshooting what I thought might be a loose part in the DAC, I opened it and took a look. It's very clean and neatly assembled. The Mundorf capacitors are right there as advertised, the dB Audio logo and model revision number are silk screened on the board, and it's not anything like the sort of board you'd typically see shipped in from overseas. I have good confidence that it's made in the US as advertised.

3. I was one who was initially critical/skeptical here, and I have found the technical details provided since the early stages of the thread and the discussion that I had with Eric on the phone to have provided me with all the answers I needed. Actually, my knowledge about the technical considerations that went into the DAC design is probably greater now than my comparable knowledge about other components in my system.

4. Eric is correct in noting their dedication to helping owners optimize their computer audio systems. I had already picked up a lot of good information online and avoided some common problems. Eric wanted to review the computer system setup after I placed my order to be sure I didn't have any issues there. Everything Eric suggested tracked with my knowledge/understanding, and he gave me a couple of good directions to consider in tweaking further.

5. The sound of the DAC is obviously of primary concern. It's only been playing for a couple of hours, but I can already confirm that a design goal that Eric has mentioned about the DAC getting harmonics and decay correct appears confirmed in my listening. I'll report back after it has a couple of hundred hours on it and I have the Ridge Street Audio Alethias cable in the system and burned in as well. There's definitely a flow and coherence to the sound right out of the box that improves on my PS Audio DL III (Cullen Level III mods; HiFace coaxial adapter).

Hope that all helps.

[doctorcilantro]

I have heard this DAC, and IMO it is a killer product.  I have no idea what is inside and how it does what it does, I don't care.  For me it is about the sound quality and the Tranquility gets it done in spades.

What system? Room? Source formats?

Etc.?

thanks
DC

[Afterimage]

Macbook>>Tranquility DAC>>Grover Interconnects>>Unison Unico SE Integrated amp (Modded)>>WLM La Scala speakers.    Not sure of the room dimensions. 

[truant]

I just wanted to check back in with a short update.  I've been able to spend some more time with my Tranquility and it continues to improve.  I'm certainly listening less to vinyl now but we'll have to see how this plays out over time. I did have one minor issue with one of my computer settings and being relatively new to using a MacBook as source might tend to underestimate the importance of this.  I've found that the iTunes volume setting seems to influence the sound of the Tranquility more than it did with my Havana. I'm still waiting for my Ridge Street usb cable to arrive to replace my Polestar and will update with my findings.  I'm excited as hell with how this dac has elevated the sound of my system.  Again, I want to thank Eric for his great customer support.  While I'm not one of us who needed much convincing to buy talking with him on the phone prior to the purchase certainly sealed the deal.  Speaking for myself I like a little mystique and the fact that there was some interesting if vague buzz around the dB when it first arrived on the scene made it somewhat more appealing to me.  At the end of the day it's only as good as it sounds to you in your home.  I'm really looking forward to hearing some of the impressions from Danny and the gang when they have the time to listen to the dB in the company of some of the other well regarded dacs.
(my system again:  MacBook/dB dac/Polestar usb/Pure Note ICs & Pure Note Alluvion PCs for dac&amp into PorterPort)/LFD Zero integrated amp/LFD Spirolflex/Vandersteen 1Cs.)

[rajacat]

How would you describe the sound of the dB as compared to your Mhdt Havana?

-Roy

[truant]

Air, air, and more air.  The music seems so much more like a living and breathing presence.  I like the music coming through the Havana but the music through the Tranquility is more fleshed out, more dimensional.  As I think someone has already mentioned you can hear more of a note's decay.  More of the music's nuance comes through with the dB dac than with the Havana. Notes seem less truncated, more shapely, more tonally complex not to mention more human, more clearly an emotional expression as well as a beautiful sound.

[rajacat]

 

Air, air, and more air.  The music seems so much more like a living and breathing presence.  I like the music coming through the Havana but the music through the Tranquility is more fleshed out, more dimensional.  As I think someone has already mentioned you can hear more of a note's decay.  More of the music's nuance comes through with the dB dac than with the Havana. Notes seem less truncated, more shapely, more tonally complex not to mention more human, more clearly an emotional expression as well as a beautiful sound.

Very articulate comparison.!

Thanks,

Roy

[newzooreview]

I'm about 50 hours into the break-in, but I made one tweak at Eric's suggestion that seems to be meaningful.

I had the Tranquility plugged in to a PS Audio Quartet power filter using a VH Audio Flavor 1 power cord. Eric suggested I connect it directly to a wall outlet (even if that required using a plain vanilla cord for length). Eric suggested that the filtering wasn't needed and could be inhibiting the Tranquility.

The analogy that I came up with (probably not original) is that of a water filter. It cleans up the water (or filters noise out of the current) but it restricts flow in the line. What Eric had to say was that they put a lot of work into the power supply in the DAC and the filtering doesn't help it BUT the affect of filtering may restrict the DAC's performance.

In any case, the best I could do was connect the Tranquility with a stock black cord to the DAC plugged to the outlet via a drug store extension cord. I let it burn-in overnight and this morning I found a definite opening up of the sound (the air that a recent poster noted) and more oomph and texture to the bass.

I can't say that this was solely due to getting rid of the filtering on the incoming AC. The DAC could have just happened to pass a turning point in the break-in. In my experience break-in can show stochastic jumps in improvement rather than a continuous improvement towards some asymptote.

But I figured it would be of interest to folks to note that unfettered power connection seems to help the Tranquility.

[newzooreview]

Hmmmm, well I just heard the best presentation I've ever heard on my system of a song that I often mix into my evaluation listening: Slip Slidin' Away by Paul Simon. It's not an audiophile recording, and that's a benefit. There are lead and backing vocals massed in the center that are a revealing test of resolution and separation. I wasn't going to bother with such critical listening (and this one song is not the whole picture, of course), but after the changes with the new power cord I decided to give it a whirl.

For the first time ever, it was obvious to me that there were two backing vocals at the beginning of the song who sing before Paul Simon enters the mix. I had always thought that he was singing right from the outset, but it doesn't seem so. I think this speaks well of timbre, air, and resolution. Throughout the song I heard a very natural presentation of vocals with the clearest distinction among the voices that I've heard. I also heard some subtle echoes in the recording studio that I hadn't previously noticed. And the ease of the whole presentation was quite seductive.

It will be a couple more weeks, I think, before I have the Alethias USB cable broken in along with the Tranquility, so I'll get into the system details and A/B comparisons to the PS Audio then. It's sounding like the Tranquility will better what I have, and the PS Audio with HiFace will go up for sale. We'll see. Given that the PS Audio has the Cullen level III mods and handles coax and optical (as well as high resolution input) I'm sure there will be a market for it.

Happy listening!

[dBe]

I'm about 50 hours into the break-in, but I made one tweak at Eric's suggestion that seems to be meaningful.

I had the Tranquility plugged in to a PS Audio Quartet power filter using a VH Audio Flavor 1 power cord. Eric suggested I connect it directly to a wall outlet (even if that required using a plain vanilla cord for length). Eric suggested that the filtering wasn't needed and could be inhibiting the Tranquility.

The analogy that I came up with (probably not original) is that of a water filter. It cleans up the water (or filters noise out of the current) but it restricts flow in the line. What Eric had to say was that they put a lot of work into the power supply in the DAC and the filtering doesn't help it BUT the affect of filtering may restrict the DAC's performance.

In any case, the best I could do was connect the Tranquility with a stock black cord to the DAC plugged to the outlet via a drug store extension cord. I let it burn-in overnight and this morning I found a definite opening up of the sound (the air that a recent poster noted) and more oomph and texture to the bass.

I can't say that this was solely due to getting rid of the filtering on the incoming AC. The DAC could have just happened to pass a turning point in the break-in. In my experience break-in can show stochastic jumps in improvement rather than a continuous improvement towards some asymptote.

But I figured it would be of interest to folks to note that unfettered power connection seems to help the Tranquility.

What you are describing is sympomatic of any digital audio component plugged into a power filter that uses MOV's for surge and spike protection.  The MOV's have a tendancy to "rattle" electrically and put noise back onto the line at frequencies that are deleterious to digital audio reconstruction (the clock) and playback.  Power filtration is not a bad thing for digital, per se, just some types of componentry in the filters.

Dave

[doug s.]

i don't know how this would effect the tranquility, but it has been my experience that using an isolation transformer, one for dac & second for transport, has always improved performance, isolating line noise, and providing a lower noise-floor for the music.

doug s.

What you are describing is sympomatic of any digital audio component plugged into a power filter that uses MOV's for surge and spike protection.  The MOV's have a tendancy to "rattle" electrically and put noise back onto the line at frequencies that are deleterious to digital audio reconstruction (the clock) and playback.  Power filtration is not a bad thing for digital, per se, just some types of componentry in the filters.

Dave

[newzooreview]

@dBe

What's an MOV? So the filtering is not purely subtractive. Maybe a better explanation than my water filter analogy.

@doug s.

The Tranquility is effectively isolated from the computer and amplifer because those things are still plugged into the filtered power and the DAC is on a different outlet (same circuit, though). At least I assume that things plugged into the Quartet are not sending any noise back through the filter and into the main circuit. I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to such things.

[dBe]

What's an MOV? So the filtering is not purely subtractive. Maybe a better explanation than my water filter analogy.

MOV - metal oxide varistor - a sacrificial device used to provide surge suppression by a change in conductivity.  Here is a pretty good overview of the device.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1155237,00.asp

They generally are only a bandaid.  To use one in an audio circuit we have to provide very effective EMI and RFI filtration after the MOV to reduce their deleterious effects.

Dave

[newzooreview]

@dBe

"a sacrificial device" -- to appease the electron gods

thanks for the explanation

i have no idea if PS Audio uses those without EMI filters (wouldn't want to say their power thingy is a bad design since i do not know)

[*Scotty*]

I use a gas discharge surge arrestor in place of MOVs and I have had good results in protecting my DIY projects.
See link:   http://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?Keyword=gas+discharge+surge+arrestor&FS=True
Scotty

[DaveC113]

I'm about 50 hours into the break-in, but I made one tweak at Eric's suggestion that seems to be meaningful.

I had the Tranquility plugged in to a PS Audio Quartet power filter using a VH Audio Flavor 1 power cord. Eric suggested I connect it directly to a wall outlet (even if that required using a plain vanilla cord for length). Eric suggested that the filtering wasn't needed and could be inhibiting the Tranquility.

The analogy that I came up with (probably not original) is that of a water filter. It cleans up the water (or filters noise out of the current) but it restricts flow in the line. What Eric had to say was that they put a lot of work into the power supply in the DAC and the filtering doesn't help it BUT the affect of filtering may restrict the DAC's performance.

In any case, the best I could do was connect the Tranquility with a stock black cord to the DAC plugged to the outlet via a drug store extension cord. I let it burn-in overnight and this morning I found a definite opening up of the sound (the air that a recent poster noted) and more oomph and texture to the bass.

I can't say that this was solely due to getting rid of the filtering on the incoming AC. The DAC could have just happened to pass a turning point in the break-in. In my experience break-in can show stochastic jumps in improvement rather than a continuous improvement towards some asymptote.

But I figured it would be of interest to folks to note that unfettered power connection seems to help the Tranquility.

If the DAC doesn't benefit from power filtration or aftermarket power cords, that's a BIG plus in my book... I believe it indicates a properly designed power supply. We have imperfect electricity, and equipment should be designed to compensate for this or at least greatly reduce it's affect on sound quality. I don't really want to deal with power filtration and power cord geometry to optimize my equipment. I want to plug it into the wall and get 99.9% of it's performance with a zip cord supplying power. I don't want to notice how things sound better at night. It's bad enough that ICs and SCs can have a major affect on sound.