Luxman DA-06 DAC plus Synergistic Research HFTs = The best digital sound we've ever experienced at Synergistic Research!
The US importer for Luxman electronics, Philip O'hanlon, contacted us several weeks ago with an offer to try his Luxman DA-06 DAC and an offer to use it in our reference system for the upcoming CES in Las Vegas. Unfortunately Philip did not have a unit ready for us to try until after the holidays. As a rule we NEVER use anything in our show systems without first working with a component for at least one to two months prior to a show. You see it usually takes this long to learn a components sonic characteristics and to determine whether or not a component is compatible with the sound of the rest of our show system.
Now for Philip, he's a very persuasive guy and besides, he throws the best party in Vegas and he's a friend so we decided to give his DAC a last minute audition. After letting the DAC warm up in our factory system over night the sound of the Luxman DAC was good, in fact very very good. We were feeding the DA-06 with a stock Mac mini in conjunction with our Tranquility Base our Active USB SE cable. The soundstage of the DA-06 was even larger than the digital front end we had intended to use and the sound was more musical and natural so we decided why not, let's use Philips DAC.
Then we got an idea. We removed the top cover to the DAC, no small task given its excellent build quality with a chassis obviously designed to minimize resonance harmful to good sound. We then placed 6 HFTs, one each on 5 IC chips and a 6th on the Luxman's D to A chip and listened. The transformation in sound was amazing and obvious with a significantly larger and more layered soundfield with tighter bass, more air, presence and what could only be called more analog sound density. We then added 4 more HFTs to critical capacitors in the circuit and again, a significant improvement in sound. Lastly we placed 5 HFTs on 5 different SR20 fuses for one more big boost in performance and the transformation was complete. From a $5000 Luxman DAC being fed by a stock Apple Mac mini we were getting the best digital sound our reference system has ever produced and this includes mega $50k + digital stacks. Remarkable.
If you are attending CES you're in for a real treat!
The US importer for Luxman electronics, Philip O'hanlon, contacted us several weeks ago with an offer to try his Luxman DA-06 DAC and an offer to use it in our reference system for the upcoming CES in Las Vegas. Unfortunately Philip did not have a unit ready for us to try until after the holidays. As a rule we NEVER use anything in our show systems without first working with a component for at least one to two months prior to a show. You see it usually takes this long to learn a components sonic characteristics and to determine whether or not a component is compatible with the sound of the rest of our show system.
Now for Philip, he's a very persuasive guy and besides, he throws the best party in Vegas and he's a friend so we decided to give his DAC a last minute audition. After letting the DAC warm up in our factory system over night the sound of the Luxman DAC was good, in fact very very good. We were feeding the DA-06 with a stock Mac mini in conjunction with our Tranquility Base our Active USB SE cable. The soundstage of the DA-06 was even larger than the digital front end we had intended to use and the sound was more musical and natural so we decided why not, let's use Philips DAC.
Then we got an idea. We removed the top cover to the DAC, no small task given its excellent build quality with a chassis obviously designed to minimize resonance harmful to good sound. We then placed 6 HFTs, one each on 5 IC chips and a 6th on the Luxman's D to A chip and listened. The transformation in sound was amazing and obvious with a significantly larger and more layered soundfield with tighter bass, more air, presence and what could only be called more analog sound density. We then added 4 more HFTs to critical capacitors in the circuit and again, a significant improvement in sound. Lastly we placed 5 HFTs on 5 different SR20 fuses for one more big boost in performance and the transformation was complete. From a $5000 Luxman DAC being fed by a stock Apple Mac mini we were getting the best digital sound our reference system has ever produced and this includes mega $50k + digital stacks. Remarkable.
If you are attending CES you're in for a real treat!