T+a dac8

thanks for the helpful comments -- looks like it would be hard to go wrong here.

any experience using in combination with the t+a mp8? not the holy-grail, one-box solution i have been looking for, but the two together seem to make a pretty complete, high quality digital stack... which is proving hard to replicate elsewhere in any form factor at the combined price point.
 
aKnyght said:
thanks for the helpful comments -- looks like it would be hard to go wrong here.

any experience using in combination with the t+a mp8? not the holy-grail, one-box solution i have been looking for, but the two together seem to make a pretty complete, quality digital stack... which is proving hard/impossible to replicate elsewhere in any form factor at the combined price point.
Click to expand...


The MP 2500 R combines the 2 devices in one.
It gets very good reviews.
 
Loving the DAC8 DSD in my system. I will probably be getting rid of my Bryston headphone amp and use the DAC to power my cans as well.

A couple guys from our audio club were over yesterday. They were blown away by how the T+A sounded with HQ Player upsampling everything to 24.6 (or 24M6 as T+A labels it :))...

I am personally very impressed and feel this DAC is probably the biggest improvement any single piece has made in my system. Those who have followed my journey over the past few years know how many changes have been tried (14 DACs I believe I am up to now, 10 amplifiers, etc.).
 
Randy Myers said:
Loving the DAC8 DSD in my system. I will probably be getting rid of my Bryston headphone amp and use the DAC to power my cans as well.

A couple guys from our audio club were over yesterday. They were blown away by how the T+A sounded with HQ Player upsampling everything to 24.6 (or 24M6 as T+A labels it :))...

I am personally very impressed and feel this DAC is probably the biggest improvement any single piece has made in my system. Those who have followed my journey over the past few years know how many changes have been tried (14 DACs I believe I am up to now, 10 amplifiers, etc.).
Click to expand...


Randy a friend of mine just got one of these, he wants to know how to check the firmware version ?
 
Hmmmm... I am not sure, but I do know that mine does not have the latest firmware. When I contacted T+A support they said I had to ship the DAC to them in Germany if I did not have access to a MP 8 to update the firmware. I would say that this is probably the only disappointment that I have had with the DAC 8 DSD.

I wish they would come up with a way of updating the firmware. I really do not want to send it to Germany and the MP 8 really does not make much sense to me at this point. If it could play SACDs then I might actually consider it... I rarely listen to my tuner but I might more if it was FM-HD which the MP 8 has. I have no interest in spinning standard CDs since I rip every CD and up-sample them to DSD512 with HQPlayer (which makes CDs sound truly high res I might add).

I have actually considered getting rid of my ARC pre-amp and getting a MP 8 simply to complete the T+A system. One thing holding me back is I am still trying to get over my disbelief of how good the AMP 8 is being how small it is. I actually have researched other amplifiers, such as pre-owned ARCs, etc.; however every time I actually sit down and listen the the AMP 8 I think to myself how amazing it is. Especially when seeing how compact it is :).
 
Randy Myers said:
Hmmmm... I am not sure, but I do know that mine does not have the latest firmware. When I contacted T+A support they said I had to ship the DAC to them in Germany if I did not have access to a MP 8 to update the firmware. I would say that this is probably the only disappointment that I have had with the DAC 8 DSD.

I wish they would come up with a way of updating the firmware. I really do not want to send it to Germany and the MP 8 really does not make much sense to me at this point. If it could play SACDs then I might actually consider it... I rarely listen to my tuner but I might more if it was FM-HD which the MP 8 has. I have no interest in spinning standard CDs since I rip every CD and up-sample them to DSD512 with HQPlayer (which makes CDs sound truly high res I might add).

I have actually considered getting rid of my ARC pre-amp and getting a MP 8 simply to complete the T+A system. One thing holding me back is I am still trying to get over my disbelief of how good the AMP 8 is being how small it is. I actually have researched other amplifiers, such as pre-owned ARCs, etc.; however every time I actually sit down and listen the the AMP 8 I think to myself how amazing it is. Especially when seeing how compact it is :).
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That's pretty much his biggest complaint with the T&A. If a fix comes out and it requires an update, sending the thing to Germany is pretty much the pits. Not very "user friendly" in that regards. But so far he likes it.
 
If someone is aware of any way to update firmware without sending my unit back to Germany I would love to hear it. I am also fairly certain that the firmware update is minimal, but I do prefer to keep as up to date as possible :)...
 
CPP said:
That's pretty much his biggest complaint with the T&A. If a fix comes out and it requires an update, sending the thing to Germany is pretty much the pits. Not very "user friendly" in that regards. But so far he likes it.
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Nothing yet that I’m aware of Randy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Maybe that is a service that T+A can allow certain dealers do in the future for a nominal fee. Maybe they can provide to the dealer the other T+A product so the dealer can easily do the upgrade.
 
Great equipment, both in sound and construction.

Please let me know if you hear anything Mike.
 
That does seem like an odd solution but, thankfully, it’s something they could probably fix with a little determination.
 
Similar situation as what the owners of the Aqua La Voce DAC are faced with. The importer has been unable to find a service center that the factory will approve for their board upgrade so if you are interested it has to go back to Italy. As I have both the DS Sr. and the Musical Paradise here I have just left it alone until something can be changed in the upgrade process. According to Srajen and Darko the difference with the board upgrade is not subtle.
 
The way I see it, one thing is having to replace a board and another one is having firmware (which is software) updated. My Oppo player receives firmware updates automatically via the internet! No need to take it anywhere to have that done.
That said, I am not sure how frequently one would have to do these upgrades. Moreover, I love the sound of the T+A DAC it is the best DAC I have ever owned.
 
Randy - updates are handled here. I’ll PM you details.


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Thank you Mike. Great news and it is excellent that this was handled so fast. Still would be better to be able to handle it myself, but it is very cool that T+A has setup a US based center to handle these updates!
 
Randy Myers said:
Thank you Mike. Great news and it is excellent that this was handled so fast. Still would be better to be able to handle it myself, but it is very cool that T+A has setup a US based center to handle these updates!
Click to expand...

Good news


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
I have exchanged a couple e-mails with the North American sales manager for T+A. Basically he states that there is no need to update the firmware on a DAC 8 DSD.

"Dear Randy,

The firmware update is only necessary if older DAC8 DSD shall be combined with a MP8. In this case the MP8 will do the update. An update will bring no benefit if
there is no MP8 in the system. There will be absolutely no difference in audio quality nor any other benefit if updating the firmware.

The only thing that was changed is that newer firmware can show the DSD sample rate in two different ways: either for example as "2M8" or as "DSD64".

In summary, I found out there is no need to update your DAC8 DSD unless you are adding a MP8.

Kindest regards,"

The display choice was what let me know there was a firmware update. The online manual gives this option while mine does not. While I would like this option, getting this one display option is certainly not worth sending my machine to Georgia, and certainly not worth sending it to Germany :).

Anyway, this is the absolute latest information from T+A about this. Even though there is no at home way of updating the firmware, they have confirmed that there is no sonic reason for doing it anyway.
 
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