Trinity DAC

bonzo75 · Jun 27, 2016

CKKeung said:
Not possibly but definitely very rude!
And you obviously don't know what the words 'most' & 'uncommon' mean.

I do. I would say the opposite. Most hifi has no sonic superior quality and is overpriced. There are very few expensive components that are really worth it. This is not a developed, liquid, efficient market by any means.

I am sure you are aware of Kotler's 4Ps of marketing - that the success of a product is made up of 3Ps other than the Product attributes - Price, Promotion and Place (Distribution).

adyc · Jun 27, 2016

Jazzhead said:
Does anybody have a definite euro retail for the Trinity PC Drive ? Was quoted as 19k € on this thread , but seems much lower as president the HKG retail .

There is no VAT in Hong Kong. It is at least 20% cheaper. Furthermore, Asia dealers usually have a bigger discount.

bonzo75 · Jun 27, 2016

Why do they sell at a discount? As per recent posts that will imply a drop in sonic quality! My current dac is broken in and has improved in sound so I can offer it to you guys at double the price. Seriously.

Mike Lavigne · Jun 27, 2016

bonzo75 said:
Why do they sell at a discount? As per recent posts that will imply a drop in sonic quality! My current dac is broken in and has improved in sound so I can offer it to you guys at double the price. Seriously.

whether we like it or not, the Asian market sets the prices on 'uber' HiFi. it demands relatively high prices and either high trade values or high discounts. that is how business is done, what the dealers demand from the manufacturers, and where the money is to fuel product advancement world wide. and we all benefit as performance is pushed forward fueled by that money. we can choose to ignore it if we like.....but it is the 800 pound Gorilla in the world wide high end audio room.

which is related but not the same thing as whether price = value/performance. it generally does, but not always. in Asia particularly in digital there are also plenty of shoot-outs where one uber piece is compared to another.......especially with digital. so stuff might be priced high, but the value deflates quickly if it cannot perform.

products like the Trinity dac, or the big dCS stack, or the new MSB Select all have high prices, but have also run the gauntlet of those shoot outs.

I owned the Trinity dac for 4 months. and during that time I was improving my server through quite a few steps. just because the performance improved with each step of getting fed better data quality did not invalidate it's value.

easily the best PCM I've yet heard, possibly as good as the (x2 expensive) MSB Select on PCM. an amazing piece of audio gear for sure.

I only sold it because I had too much money invested in PCM-only and hoped, after hearing what PCM could really sound like, that prices would moderate or technology of up sampling would improve enough to get close to Trinity PCM at a lower price.....at some point.

I've not yet heard anything like it at a lower price.....and only one example of similar PCM performance at a 2x higher price.

bonzo75 · Jun 27, 2016

Mike, I am not referring to any particular brand - just in general find it difficult to believe that Pricing is based on sonic value and higher the price the better the product. Ckkeung made a statement that price is directly proportional to sonic quality.

Like in any market, Asia will have it's percentage of audiophiles some who can hear, some who pay purely for pride of ownership, and some a mix of both.

Mike Lavigne · Jun 27, 2016

bonzo75 said:
Mike, I am not referring to any particular brand - just in general find it difficult to believe that Pricing is based on sonic value and higher the price the better the product. Ckkeung made a statement that price is directly proportional to sonic quality.

Like in any market, Asia will have it's percentage of audiophiles some who can hear, some who pay purely for pride of ownership, and some a mix of both.

would you agree that within particular brand's that price is related to performance?

not that this relationship of price and performance is linear. typically you pay a lot for incremental steps within brands.

microstrip · Jun 27, 2016

bonzo75 said:
Mike, I am not referring to any particular brand - just in general find it difficult to believe that Pricing is based on sonic value and higher the price the better the product. Ckkeung made a statement that price is directly proportional to sonic quality.

Like in any market, Asia will have it's percentage of audiophiles some who can hear, some who pay purely for pride of ownership, and some a mix of both.

In general, once analyzed in proper systems, I have found that an higher price results in better performance. We have exceptions, surely, that some people love to highlight to show their point. Many high end components are so specific of user preference or system matching that its impossible to associate a performance / cost factor to them.

As usually IMHO and YMMV - perhaps we are debating the half full/half empty glass. I prefer the half full.

The law that scales performance with cost is usually admitted as logarithmic or similar - the law of diminishing returns.

bonzo75 · Jun 27, 2016

Mike Lavigne said:
would you agree that within particular brand's that price is related to performance?

not that this relationship of price and performance is linear. typically you pay a lot for incremental steps within brands.

Yes usually.

bonzo75 · Jun 27, 2016

Hi based on Mike's post, I reread the last few comments, and I must profusely apologize to CK - I thought he was comparing trinity to Metronome Kalista and saying the higher price is better. However, I now realize that he was saying Trinity's lower price server is better than Metronome's higher price CD player, and therefore within Trinity's product range the higher priced Trinity stuff must be logically better than the Met

I agree on that totally, but I completely took his comment out of context and was shocked how anyone could simply say a higher priced product is better, which I interpreted to be Brand A is better than Brand B if A is priced higher.

CK, please again accept my apologies.

Mike Lavigne · Jun 27, 2016

bonzo75 said:
Yes usually.

which is all we can ever hope for.

the marketplace then passes judgment on brands themselves......not in any remotely fair or reasonable way.....but over time the marketplace gets it right as far as price and value.

the exception being 'iconic' brands that people own for reasons other than performance. or synergy or just personal taste issues.

there are so many different reasons to buy stuff. and how many of us get a true shot at objective comparisons? the best we can do is whether we think we like it more than the last product.

Narayan · Jun 27, 2016

CKKeung said:
I will answer some of the questions :
The optical conversion box isolates Most of the noise coming from the Trinity Media PC circuitry. Noise floor decreased and digital harshness gone.
The connection of my friend is : Trinity Media PC > Skogrand Beethoven usb cable > optical conversion box > single mode optical cable > Trinity DAC optical input (the 4th from the left in the photo).
My friend is using Siltech Triple Crown xlr ic for the analog outputs from Trinity DAC. The TripleCrown is MSG of extreme quality! Don't use too much in a system, one may be enough already. The other ic of his system are Taralabs Grandmaster Evolution xlr which has a more even character.

Thank you for your impressions CKKeung, could you clarify what you mean when you say not to use the Triple Crown too much in a system? The Taralabs looks to be another extraordinary cable your friend knows how to pamper himself

Audiocrack · Jun 27, 2016

bonzo75 said:
Hi based on Mike's post, I reread the last few comments, and I must profusely apologize to CK - I thought he was comparing trinity to Metronome Kalista and saying the higher price is better. However, I now realize that he was saying Trinity's lower price server is better than Metronome's higher price CD player, and therefore within Trinity's product range the higher priced Trinity stuff must be logically better than the Met

I agree on that totally, but I completely took his comment out of context and was shocked how anyone could simply say a higher priced product is better, which I interpreted to be Brand A is better than Brand B if A is priced higher.

CK, please again accept my apologies.

Not sure if your second interpretation is correct. Still believe CK does prefer the Kalista reference to the Trinity server (or believes the former is better than the latter) but if I am (also) wrong, maybe CK could provide some further explanation.

bonzo75 · Jun 27, 2016

Actually, lol, I retract my apology. I should learn to not read with Brexit on one screen and a hifi forum on the other.

I reread again and realized that first CK mentioned that the Aurender W20 should be good because it is more expensive

CKKeung said:
We get what we paid for. Trinity Media PC price is lower than that of Aurander W20. HiFi manufacturers rarely set wrong prices.

And then he said it's illogical that

CKKeung said:
IMHO it is illogical if the Trinity Media PC (net price in HK = usd13k) can be better than the Metronome flagship CD transport (usd30k).

Reason being

CKKeung said:
Because most hifi manufacturers are smart and will set the prices of their products according to the absolute sonic performance.
Giant killers are not common.

Well - I feel very strongly about this as this is against the very essence of audiophilia of finding components with sonic values and building up a system. Such people buy on on price tags and through sheer luck might chance upon a good sounding component.

adyc · Jun 27, 2016

Mike Lavigne said:
would you agree that within particular brand's that price is related to performance?

not that this relationship of price and performance is linear. typically you pay a lot for incremental steps within brands.

Not that simple. Within the same brand, different models cater for different situations. It is most true for speakers. One does not expect flagship four towers speakers perform well in a small to medium room. Speaker manufacturers may design a particular model to function best in small to medium room.

I saw a few audiophiles in Asia putting four tower speakers in small listening room. They bought it because they think this is the flagship model and must be good in their listening room.

Mike Lavigne · Jun 27, 2016

adyc said:
Not that simple. Within the same brand, different models cater for different situations. It is most true for speakers. One does not expect flagship four towers speakers perform well in a small to medium room. Speaker manufacturers may design a particular model to function best in small to medium room.

I saw a few audiophiles in Asia putting four tower speakers in small listening room. They bought it because they think this is the flagship model and must be good in their listening room.

4 tower speaker systems not 'fitting' in a room are an extremely small subset of 'same brand' higher price, higher performance picture. and even in some of those cases, the more adjustable 4-tower versions can be more easily adapted to the same smaller room than the less adjustable lower priced single cabinet version.

not all products of a single brand are designed to do the same things.

but price is still related to performance in one way or another within a brand....unless it's cosmetic upgrade.

bonzo75 · Jun 27, 2016

Mike Lavigne said:
not that this relationship of price and performance is linear. typically you pay a lot for incremental steps within brands.

I am not sure if you pay a lot for incremental steps. The Big 7 was a massive, massive jump up over the Big 6 at a very low price. Yes, The GG wasn't as big at a higher price.

The biggest examples are in horns. I don't like many horn second in lines. The jump to the flagship of a brand is massive and well worth it.

When the Divas were made they cost 9.5k USD. The Apogee Grand was 85k. Yes, there was model called Full Range made much before the Divas and higher than Divas, but the jump from Divas to both FRs and Grands was massive in quality and price.

The Alexandrias are way superior to the Alexias. I don't like Alexias and below, but the Alexandrias are superb.

In Analog, I don't yet know.

bonzo75 · Jun 28, 2016

Btw Mike, the reason I started investigating Thoress is I first read your post that it was a giant killer. Still haven't managed to compare it with other phonos but high on my priority list

Mike Lavigne · Jun 28, 2016

bonzo75 said:
Btw Mike, the reason I started investigating Thoress is I first read your post that it was a giant killer. Still haven't managed to compare it with other phonos but high on my priority list

the Thoress Phono Enhance is the real deal and plays above it's price point.

this is one product that might get negatively affected by it's modest price. big boy vinyl players might not take it seriously. but it plays with the very best phono stages.

Jazzhead · Aug 14, 2016

Have the Trinity DAC playing into it's matching pre . I feel compelled to add to the other reviews on this thread . So, here's my take .... WOW !!!!

LL21 · Aug 14, 2016

Jazzhead said:
Have the Trinity DAC playing into it's matching pre . I feel compelled to add to the other reviews on this thread . So, here's my take .... WOW !!!!

Great stuff! How does it compare with Stahl Tek Opus Prime DAC and Vitus Masterpiece DAC?

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