Sold. Sold. Sold. Asking $1100.
I
purchased this unit about 6 months ago from LTA (USA dealer) for $1180 shipped with the upgraded Western Electric tube. This WE tube is a very nice upgrade. I love the sound of this dac and find it to be an easy best buy at 2 to 3 times the price. Yes, it is that good folks.
I am an avid builder of gear and cables and looked forward to taking the sonic performance of this already great dac up to another level. I did just that and have enjoyed this dac tremendously. A recap of what I did is listed below. I would say the sound improvement is across the board and both obvious and substantial.
- upgraded the output capacitors to a custom made set of 2.2uf copper foil in beeswax, flat stacked design caps from Jupiter Condenser. Chris of Jupiter does not offer these out as they cost too much to build and takes too much time to manufacture. They are a sonic cut above the fantastic round Jupiter copper foil caps. These cost over $410 for the matched set.
- 4 Miflex copper foil caps in other key positions. See pics. $55 cost
- 10 resistors located around the tube in key positions sonically were replaced with a mix of the first rate Vishay Nude TX2575 Zfoil, Mills MRA, Takman Rex, and Audio Note Tantalum non magnetic resistors. $115 cost
- AMR Audiophile fuse $35
- chassis dampening
- unit comes with stock NOS tube in addition to the WE tube
Total cost of the parts, not including labor, is $620. This brings the total cost of the Upgraded Orchid to $1800.
This unit sounds wonderful and so musically satisfying. My price is $1100. This unit is perfect for somebody looking for the best dac sound attainable for around $1000. Nothing can touch the sonics of this unit for my price.
Please see the pics and my feedback on Audiogon under Grannyring. Come with the original, packing and manual.
Shipping is $19.
Thanks for looking.
Bill
