Don’t know if you can comment @M0N but saw this today and it may be an interesting thing for someone wanting to try a DAC w/a tube in it for not BP dollars.
So I really wouldn’t be complaining if it was 300-500 bucks, but at 1k+ it retails for, it’s a hard sell given what other competitors in the price bracket can do
It’s a nice dac, but admittedly I don’t remember much about it from the short demo I had in like 2012 of it or something lol. It didn’t sound like a borderdpatrol though, if you wanted a dac that sounds like a higher end border patrol you would want to look at a lab12 dac1 reference
info about the lab12
To sum it up, feels like a logical borderpatrol upgrade without the output impedance issue and with a more neutral signature. Has a lot of tonal density and is very rich, very spacious and enveloping stage but also poor placement accuracy and can feel hazy, great timbre, mediocre dynamics and detail for the price but very forgiving, softer, and fun if you are into that. It really feels like a borderpatrol but further refined and more capable, but I’m personally not a big fan of the borderpatrol that much and the lab12 while an improvement overall is a high price to pay for that improvement, but if you are a diehard borderpatrol fan this is totally worth a look
Oh, I’m good on DACs, just shared in case someone was interested. lol
Have heard the MHDT Labs Canary as well? 
I have, it’s less technically capable than the others, but is warmer thicker relaxed, not my first choice out of their options
Not exactly on topic but a side step. After the Volot HP amp my next purchase that I’m saving for is the Manley Chinook special edition tube phono.
I heard one of these recently and for vinyl was exactly the direction I want to take my 2 channel rig.
I asked the Tor Audio guy some questions, but he hasn’t replied for some time. Does anyone know
- How big is the sound difference between the two DACs?
- Does the tube part affect the RCA outs or is it just for the headphone part?
- What tubes does it come with?
Can’t comment on the sound, but given where he’s located and the fact he quotes Russian tube numbers means he’s almost certainly using Russian military surplus tubes.
Which if they were made before the 90’s could be any number of manufacturers and probably aren’t labelled with one.
That isn’t a bad thing, good 6SN7’s have gotten expensive while 6n8s are cheap, plentiful and generally good.
The difference looks to be the “David” using a Tube rectifier instead of solid state.
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