Supercharged - Maverick Audio TubeMagic D2 DAC

[SWL3600]

Received my replacement V5 opamp from Burson this week and have all three installed in my D2 - listening to John Coltrane "A Love Supreme" right now through the DAC and all sounds good again...

Cool. I'll be interested to hear your impressions when you pop the OPA627's back in there.

 

[nj pheonix]

I think one of my sparkos crapped out. I was hearing something fuzzy the other night. I was too tired to get involved, I just swapped back in the Stock (all 3) (well the upgraded BBs i ordered it with) ones and alls good. Honestly it sounds good like this. Really not AB but i don't think i missing anything like this (BBs and the SS output).

 

[bce22]

I'm going to be installing the Sparkos Voltage Regulators tonight. It'll be a bit before I provide full listening impressions. I'm interested to hear if there are any sonic improvements over stock.

 

[filmguerilla]

Hi guys, anyone using Jriver MC with the D2? I'm loving it but the my library is a mess!

Also, are there any good plugins or settings i could use to maximize JRiver and D2? Right now i'm using SPDIF Interface (Maverick Audio TE7022) [WASAP} Not sure how i get that WASAPI option.. What's the difference with other settings. See picture pls.

Also, why on hell i'm loving the SS output! I have my Tube out and SS out on my preamp. I switch them easily for A/B comparison. The SS out have more kick than the Tube!

 

[filmguerilla]

Another setting. Do i need to tweak this part as well?

Thanks guys!

 

[filmguerilla]

Hi guys, what is your preferred inputs for your D2?

 

[SWL3600]

Update...

I've been listening with the OPA627's for 3-4 weeks now exclusively. I was even thinking of selling the Sparkos discrete opamps so that someone else could experience them at a discounted price. Went back to the Sparkos today and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The way that these discrete opamps add warmth and almost a 'velvet' like accent is admirable. I still can't say that they are such a huge improvement over the OPA's but they have a flavor that is well....it immerses me into the music more than without them.

Another thing I've noticed along the way.....when I first picked up a GE 5 Star tube I mated it with the Sparkos and then the OPA's. As I stated in an earlier post, the OPA/5 Star combo had me floored. Then, after oh.....I dunno....about 15 hours or so, the magic kinda faded away......So since then I picked up three more 5 Stars. Out of the four that I purchased, two of them had that killer sound. "Lush" would be the word I would use without hesitation. Then the sound just kinda faded away back to average. The other two 5 Stars never started out with that kick ass lush sound.....they already sounded like the other two after 15 hours or so.

So I don't know what was going on with those tubes. My experience has been that tubes normally sound better after some hours have been put on them....not the other way around.....but oh well, doesn't really matter....practically every tube I try sounds good if not great in the D2.

 

[eizner23]

Another thing I've noticed along the way.....when I first picked up a GE 5 Star tube I mated it with the Sparkos and then the OPA's. As I stated in an earlier post, the OPA/5 Star combo had me floored. Then, after oh.....I dunno....about 15 hours or so, the magic kinda faded away......So since then I picked up three more 5 Stars. Out of the four that I purchased, two of them had that killer sound.

Been completely satisfied with the sparkos and a Tesla d-getter tube. Consistant sound during 100 hours. I feared the discrete opamps might stress some components in the D2 and decided against them.

How do you compare the two opamps when listening through solid state output?

 

[SWL3600]

How do you compare the two opamps when listening through solid state output?

Glad you brought that up. When I first got the D2, I compared the SS to the tube and didn't hear much difference until after 50 hours or so....after that it was clear to me that the tube output was adding a hint of smoothness and transparency the SS could not offer. So since then I've been using the tube output 100% of the time.

I suppose it's time I compare the opamps through the SS output.

 

[sKiZo]

Another setting. Do i need to tweak this part as well?

Thanks guys!

I rip to FLAC and convert everything to 96/24 in MC as that's native for the USB side of the Maverick. Goal is to minimize the number of conversions from start to finish. The default bitdepth is actually located here in the device settings ...

Some suggest you set that to 32 bit floating for additional headroom, but that also makes much bigger demands on your processing power, so you need a REALLY good system to pull that off successfully without hiccups. As set, I NEVER have any buffering or timing issues.

 

[filmguerilla]

Thanks man! I think i'm loving the D2 with JRiver MC!!! I'm trying to tweak it as much as possible.

I noticed in some of my files. Volume seems to go down in some cases. Is this normal? I have a good system but not sure how the MC eats resources. My D2 is connected to the USB right now..

I have a few settings on my DSP.

Can you check if i'm doing it right? So far so good! I would recommend Jriver to match with D2!

I rip to FLAC and convert everything to 96/24 in MC as that's native for the USB side of the Maverick. Goal is to minimize the number of conversions from start to finish. The default bitdepth is actually located here in the device settings ...

Some suggest you set that to 32 bit floating for additional headroom, but that also makes much bigger demands on your processing power, so you need a REALLY good system to pull that off successfully without hiccups. As set, I NEVER have any buffering or timing issues.

 

[filmguerilla]

Hey SWL3600, what exactly is your GE 5 Star tube?

Update...

I've been listening with the OPA627's for 3-4 weeks now exclusively. I was even thinking of selling the Sparkos discrete opamps so that someone else could experience them at a discounted price. Went back to the Sparkos today and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The way that these discrete opamps add warmth and almost a 'velvet' like accent is admirable. I still can't say that they are such a huge improvement over the OPA's but they have a flavor that is well....it immerses me into the music more than without them.

Another thing I've noticed along the way.....when I first picked up a GE 5 Star tube I mated it with the Sparkos and then the OPA's. As I stated in an earlier post, the OPA/5 Star combo had me floored. Then, after oh.....I dunno....about 15 hours or so, the magic kinda faded away......So since then I picked up three more 5 Stars. Out of the four that I purchased, two of them had that killer sound. "Lush" would be the word I would use without hesitation. Then the sound just kinda faded away back to average. The other two 5 Stars never started out with that kick ass lush sound.....they already sounded like the other two after 15 hours or so.

So I don't know what was going on with those tubes. My experience has been that tubes normally sound better after some hours have been put on them....not the other way around.....but oh well, doesn't really matter....practically every tube I try sounds good if not great in the D2.

 

[sKiZo]

Lookin' good. Read up on "adaptive volume" and "volume leveling" and play with those some. These assume you've run ANALYZE on all your files.

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Adaptive_Volume

These routines work quite well with MOST tracks, but I still tweak some albums with Audacity's "normalize" function. Mostly stuff that some silly engineer decided to brickwall and overdrive. Those I'll run analyze, then cut back a few db's, and DON'T re-analyze. You can do that sort of thing with FLAC and suffer no degradation as it's a totally lossless format. Audacity has a "chains" feature to automate that so you can process an entire album with the click of a button. One gotcha - Audacity saves the tweaked files in a sub folder called "cleaned" in the directory the original files were located. You need to copy the cleaned files over to the original file location to overwrite the originals prior to restarting MC.

PS ... I don't use the effects or eq plugins, but then again, I don't need to as I do all that in hardware. I DO use the "convolution kernel" which is EQ on steroids based on actual frequency tests of the room - no guesswork involved.

 

[filmguerilla]

Skizo, i never heard about ANALYZE before.. Care to explain?

Thanks for the link. I will look on it later on. I'm loving the D2 now on tube preout hahaha.

I'll check the convolution kernel later on. I think a proper setup JRiver MC and PC would do wonders!

Lookin' good. Read up on "adaptive volume" and "volume leveling" and play with those some. These assume you've run ANALYZE on all your files.

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Adaptive_Volume

These routines work quite well with MOST tracks, but I still tweak some albums with Audacity's "normalize" function. Mostly stuff that some silly engineer decided to brickwall and overdrive. Those I'll run analyze, then cut back a few db's, and DON'T re-analyze. You can do that sort of thing with FLAC and suffer no degradation as it's a totally lossless format. Audacity has a "chains" feature to automate that so you can process an entire album with the click of a button. One gotcha - Audacity saves the tweaked files in a sub folder called "cleaned" in the directory the original files were located. You need to copy the cleaned files over to the original file location to overwrite the originals prior to restarting MC.

PS ... I don't use the effects or eq plugins, but then again, I don't need to as I do all that in hardware. I DO use the "convolution kernel" which is EQ on steroids based on actual frequency tests of the room - no guesswork involved.

 

[sKiZo]

You're already doing it if you haven't changed the default settings. Right click on any album, scroll down to library tools, then analyze. You'll see a summary of all sorts of neat stuff that jRiver does to match new imports and rips to R128 standards, including thing such as Replay Gain/Album Gain+, Peak Level, BPM, and Intensity. All these enhance the listening experience, especially with older music that was mastered prior to the advent of the R128 standard.

If the grid is blank, you turned off ANALYZE somewhere along the way.

 

[yurka77]

Update...

I've been listening with the OPA627's for 3-4 weeks now exclusively. I was even thinking of selling the Sparkos discrete opamps so that someone else could experience them at a discounted price. Went back to the Sparkos today and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The way that these discrete opamps add warmth and almost a 'velvet' like accent is admirable. I still can't say that they are such a huge improvement over the OPA's but they have a flavor that is well....it immerses me into the music more than without them.

Another thing I've noticed along the way.....when I first picked up a GE 5 Star tube I mated it with the Sparkos and then the OPA's. As I stated in an earlier post, the OPA/5 Star combo had me floored. Then, after oh.....I dunno....about 15 hours or so, the magic kinda faded away......So since then I picked up three more 5 Stars. Out of the four that I purchased, two of them had that killer sound. "Lush" would be the word I would use without hesitation. Then the sound just kinda faded away back to average. The other two 5 Stars never started out with that kick ass lush sound.....they already sounded like the other two after 15 hours or so.

So I don't know what was going on with those tubes. My experience has been that tubes normally sound better after some hours have been put on them....not the other way around.....but oh well, doesn't really matter....practically every tube I try sounds good if not great in the D2.

SWL, you mentioned you want to sell your Sparkos. I may be interested, i send you a PM. I have a bone stock D2 with no op amps upgrade. Let me know please

 

[SWL3600]

Got it and replied this morning. So just to be clear, when I went back to the Sparkos I definitely heard what I was missing....I'll be hanging on to the Sparkos.

 

[SWL3600]

Hey SWL3600, what exactly is your GE 5 Star tube?

We'll, it's a 5670 that is smoother than the GE that Maverick sells as the upgraded tube. Got mine from ebay and they were very affordable.

 

[filmguerilla]

Mind sharing a link or something? Sorry, so very confused with tubes because of variants and manufacturer! Hahaha

We'll, it's a 5670 that is smoother than the GE that Maverick sells as the upgraded tube. Got mine from ebay and they were very affordable.

 

[SWL3600]

Mind sharing a link or something? Sorry, so very confused with tubes because of variants and manufacturer! Hahaha

I don't see any on ebay at the moment but check it out periodically or just simply do a Google search and look for 'GE 5670 5 Star' and see where that takes you. The 5 Stars that I got are NOS and were manufactured in the 50's-60's.