TDAC or Havana?

I own a 2009 Tadac with built in pre and I used to own an MHDT Havana. Both paired with an Empirical Audio Turbo-3.

Neither was a cut above the other, plain and simple. The havana may be a bit more resolving/forward, but the Tadac has a built in preamp that is crucial in my setup. Both sound more similiar than different in my setup (great midrange due to tube design). The MHDT may be less forgiving of a bright/forward setup.

I bought the Tadac on a whim while my Redwine Isabellina was being repaired and once I replaced the cheap chinese tubes with mullard 12au7's, the Isabellina went up for sale.

I'm not sure if this version is what you're asking about (the 2009 TADAC), but I've owned a Benchmark Dac1, a Bel Canto DAC3, the Havana and an Isabellina as well. The Tadac is truly a great DAC if you feed it a clean digital signal and get rid of those cheap tubes it comes with. A good power cord helps as well (as one did with the Havana).

I also replaced the stock eh 12b7 tubes with a pair of Siemens silver plates and it really made a big difference. Paul also has an upgraded power supply for about $150.00 which is supposed to take things to another level.

I owned the TaDac and the PreDac, and the Havana was in another league from both. It had a much deeper and wider soundstage, and much greater bass extension. I had almost the identical set up to what I currently have, and you can look at my system.

I think it helps to know what someone has in their system when they comment on gear to know how it will match with yours.

My setup is fairly resolving. I say this as I had a sterile/analytical setup before with a benchmark dac1, musical fidelity a308 and a pair of quad 22l2s. U could hear every little detail but it was brutally harsh with some recordings. My assumption being the dac1 was at fault but the bel canto yielded similiar results.

My present setup is a macbook, ea offramp turbo3, tadac, rogue stereo 90 modded by rogue, livingvoice ibxr2 speakers and a hydra8. I get almost the same detail but a very analog/smooth sound. Digital cabling was crucial, as things didn't relax until I threw in a purist digital RCA and an axis USB cable. I don't prefer upsampling so that may have something to do with my take on dacs.

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