TDAC or Havana?

And to macdadtexas's point, each system and each person's taste has impact. It's been said here on agon and elsewhere a million times.

Goes w/o saying, but tubes, digital cabling and ICs can make one DAC sound miles better than another. I guess the key thing I found is the Havana and Tadac were more similar in my setup in that they're tube versus solid state and can be driven in simple 16/44.1 with similar good to great results, particularly with a clean/low jitter signal. The TADAC has the built in preamp and though many quip about the "tubyness" nob on it, it actually helped quite a bit in fine tuning my setup to match cabling/etc.

Macdad, I doubt you're the guy I sold my Havana too, but I did eventually sell it to a guy in Texas. Can't recall who it was though...

Marc

I've used both and prefer the Tadac, the Havana is too soft for me.

I find it a little odd that someone who wasn't all that thrilled with the Tadac would then go and purchase the Predac? From what I understand you need to use the tubiness control on the Tadac judiciously or you could ruin the sound. That being said I would dare to compare the new Tdac with anything sub $1000.00 and then some.

I didn't hate the TaDac, but when I bought the Havana, and in my system it was so much better, I sold the TaDac. I thought the PreDac would be an improvement, that would be a normal assumption, don't you think?

It was not any better. Since I tried so many DAC's, let me put them in the order of how I rated them, and I have actually had all of these in my system.

1) Berkeley Alpha

2) Bryston BDA-1 (so close to the Berkeley and about half the price, I bought this one)

3) MHDT Labs Havana - not the last word in detail, but super musical and a very rich full sound.

4) Bel Canto DAC3

5) PS Audio D Link III

6) Benchmark DAC 1

7) TaDac/PreDac (sounded about the same)

I have listened to the PS Audio Perfect Wave Dac extensively, but not in my system. It is also an excellent DAC and I would put it in the same company as the Berkeley and Bryston. It is actually a bit more flexible than either of those, and may have a better top end than either. Hard for me to really tell since it was not my system.

good luck.

Macdad, do you prefer upsampling and a more detailed presentation? I ask this as the bel canto and ps audio digilink are very similiar to the benchmark dac1 and all these default to 24/192 from what I recall? The tdac goes to 192 as well. It's definitely a different sound than 16(or24)/44.1 simple redbook.