You can find them in mint condition (they are only about 1-2 years old) for $1200 on Audiogon, about half what they sold for. Built like a tank, with 4 trivistors in the output stage and switchable upsampling (96/192), the tubes have 100,000 life on them (meaning unlikely you will ever change them).
It does all you ask for. Musical in a way tubes can be, but with pace, dynamics, slam. i LOVE mine and despite listening to many new DAC's recently, have never heard something I liked more, even with more expensive DACS. THe Benchmark DAC, a good DAC by comparison, sounds a tad more revealing, but less musically engaging. The Tri-Vista differs from the new MF X-10 and similar DACS in the following ways: The new DACS have a cheaper power supply (you have to pay more for the upgraded PSU), and they separate the tube stage into an external optional box which can use the same upgraded PSU as the DAC. I don't like this approach, since you have to buy an extra set of RCA cables to use the tube buffer. -- davehg ------------------------------------------------------------------------ davehg's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2269 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23762 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
