Swap arcam cd192 for MHDT Havana?

[admin_exported]

I have boxed up my Arcam CD192 to be sold. The money will be used to buy a MHDT Havana DAC. The main reason for the swap is for the convenience of not having CDs all over the place and the chance of having tubes in the system appeals to my proacs. I have no complaints about the cd192 as it gives me a wonderful sound and makes me want to keep listening.

I have read numerous reviews on the havana but am still a little nervous that the gamble will pay off. As the Havana is from taiwan I will not have the chance of a demo. There are currently two other forum members who have this dac and praise it very highly.

Is there any reason that I should keep the Arcam and put up with the cd clutter or should I take the risk and become the third forum member to own this dac?

Many thanks for your responses.

Lee

 

[Anonymous]

No opinions on this? I'm sorry about this but I have further questions.

I have sold the cd player and will now be saving the rest of the cash to buy a dac. I'mm 99% sure it will be the havana. Non-oversampling? No op-amp? I understand the oversampling bit, supposidly introducing digital glare? But what does the lack of an op-amp do? Purer signal?

And this oversampling business? I take it that an oversampling machine still can't utilize 24 bit information and can only take 16 bit and convert it to 24 bit. Thus, to take advantage of future 24 bit recordings I would need a 24 bit dac?

And tubes? In the signal path is better than a buffer? Can you get DACs with tubes in the signal path?

Reading HIFI can hurt my head!

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Lee,

I am a happy user of Havana DAC, if you don't mind tuning the sound with different tubes, i know some find it fun with the tube equipment.

If by now you have not yet have the Havana, here's how it sounds like. Im not sure how familiar you are with the Non oversampling technology, NOS dac, this technology is also employed in Audionote. As Havana being my first NOS dac, I have to say it's the most musical dac i have ever heard.

It's never harsh, and it's definitely not boring either. The most impressive thing about Havana is the sound texture, or timbre. Regardless of whichever tube you put in, the sound of all the instruments are so natural, or organic! I'm a violinist myself, so lots of classical and acoustic music, and the way havana reproduces the instruments is dead real. I have experimented linking havana with CEC cdp as a transport, it has made the sound much more involving, the sound is much more coherent opposed to upsampling which are used in most of the digital source.

However, the sound of the transport does not just disappear, i mean i can still hear transport being an influence and sending signal to havana. With the sony vaio laptop, i get more options to adjust the sound, since i could go into itune and change the setting, for me the sound through computer has better dynamics, better layered. As you can see, havana takes on the influence of the software. Therefore i would say the transport makes an important component in the chain.

There is the synergy issue, the dac maybe future proof though it will definitely take you longer time to match to a transport that acheive the sound you want.

To answer your question, u need to ask youself first if you want the new sound to have no trace of arcam. If yes, sell the arcam and move on to Havana with different transport. Mind you if you enjoy the separation of instrument from arcam, u may want to use it as transport; havana is great with rhythm stuff as well(really good timing), it just doesn't have the separation like upsampling. So good luck with it, Havana people are pretty helpful in regard to service and explaination.

andy

 

[Anonymous]

I thought that I would finish this off as, when doing research, I dislike threads that don't finish.

How do I like the havana? All I can say is that as my system evolves it will be the last piece of kit to change. Am I happy, hell yes!!!

The downside is that the bass is a little wooly (the CD192 bass was awsome) and if I have had a few too many to drink, firing up the hifi, external hard disk, sub, laptop can become a bit confusing (I have failed twice!)

But what do I get in exchange? I get to hear instruments and voices like I have never heard them before. Instruments are getting more real and the music more intimate. It took a bit of time to get over the bass issue but I am getting used to it, and the upside is that the sub integrates more fully with the proacs. (regarding the bass, I have ordered a bendix 6385, year 1964, to see if the bass could be a bit tighter, with greater impact)

Now I am starting to hear why everyone raves about the proacs!

(please bear in mind that I have listened to very few hifi rigs and i could be talking poo!)

 

[jazzdevil]

hello,

i'm a happy owner of a pair of d18 Proac's and intend to by a dac for involving pc in my system. I have read many reviews for Havana and apart from reviewers i would like the view of the users , so i would like you to ask about the sound through usb and the connection you are using between your devices

thank you in advance

 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I really rate the Havana. Bear in mind that I did not demo other DACs but the Havana with stock tube really brings music to life. The Bass was a little woolly but if you change the tube to a Bendix 6385, everything sharpens up and becomes clearer, making electronica sound much more organic. I run mine off the optical via Airport Express.

From my experience, the reviews that you have read are bang on the description of this lovely dac. So much so, I'm not too worried about an amp upgrade in the near future, something I was considering when I had the Arcam CD192.

For the moment, I'm happy! Proacs like valves!

 

[jazzdevil]

thank you

but you 've never use the usb port?

 

[Anonymous]

I have not used usb as I wanted to get away from having wires trailing across the floor. Works well with optical but have not compared with coax or usb

There is a good thread on headfi forum. 60 pages long!

 

[jazzdevil]

thank you very much for your informative reply