Here's an article on our CAF Room 316 from Part Time Audiophile's Publisher & Founder Scot Hull and the global debut of the new ZOLA BorderPatrol DAC... The entire system sounded amazing!
The Zola DAC: A New Era for BorderPatrol | CAF 2025
Zola DAC: Key Takeaways
The new $4,000 Zola DAC from BorderPatrol offers a significant upgrade in sound quality and usability over its predecessor.
Living Voice R80 OBX are world-class loudspeakers — is more than this even necessary?
Triode Wire Labs contributes
high-quality cables that complements equipment from both BorderPatrol and Living Voice UK brands,
ensuring optimal performance at an affordable price.
Innuos servers provide essential digital pathways for the audio system, with next-gen products available now.
Flashbacks!
Living Voice R80 OBX, BorderPatrol and Triode Wire Labs | CAF 2024
Living Voice R80 Loudspeakers, BorderPatrol, Innuos and Triode Wire Labs | FLAX 2025
Triode Wire Labs Full Loom | REVIEW
BorderPatrol SE-i DAC | REVIEW
CAF 2013: BorderPatrol and Living Voice
BorderPatrol, TriodeWire Labs, Innuos, Living Voice UK
A long time ago, in a galaxy not too far away, I fell in love. The object of my affections was petite. Limited in feature. Blissfully out-of-step with the state-of-the-art models. Almost deliberately retrograde. And even so, I cannot express how I loved that little DAC.
It was about as far from the center of the cutting edge of digital as you could get — and that was almost entirely the point. It had a non-oversampling DAC. Upsampling was not available. No filters. Nada. Nothing. Except for a tube. There was one of those. Probably measured like trash — John Atkinson would likely have said “this product is unfit for my testing bench.” Many other folks dismissed it out of hand for its affordable price (at less than $2,000, it clearly couldn’t be “worth it” for a serious audiophile) or for it’s simple case work (not that a thick-walled all-copper chassis is anything to sneeze at, but it doesn’t come dipped in LSD and diamonds) or for it’s Luddite feature set (any resolution you want, as long as that resolution is Redbook). But the sound heard, time and again, was one of the most intimate and transparent-to-source DACs ever heard, before or since. Those who dared take the plunge, knew. Those that didn’t, kept searching. I, for one of the several thousand extremely satisfied customers, cheerfully hit pause on the upgrade merry-go-round, and listened.
That was 2017. That was the BorderPatrol DAC SE.
Over the last 8 years, Gary Dews of BorderPatrol has been trying to make a better-sounding DAC. Apparently, that task was more difficult than he had anticipated. With the temptation to insert a snarky “hard to improve on perfection” comment duly noted, the task wasn’t so much making a product that would sound clearly better, but one that would sound at least as good and do more stuff. He hasn’t been too coy about it, either — that first DAC was something of a miracle. Making a new one required design his own circuit boards and chipset layouts, testing and selecting said chips, and then figuring out how to optimally power that layout. The Zola DAC is that final happy product. Note: tube rollers, get your collections sorted — three locations for rolling now lie before you.
The Zola DAC is available with a black or silver face plate. The knob is for selecting from the inputs — this is a rather simple but welcome upgrade, as the other DAC did this with switches on the back. Note that Zola will replace the “old” SE-I DAC (at least for the foreseeable future — who knows what treasures distant aeons may reveal). Zola is available for ordering now. Here are the other relevant details the CAF promo:
The DAC features the Analog devices AD1865 chip (often called the analogue chip) in non-oversampling, no digital filtering (NOS) mode. Inputs for USB, COAX S/PDIF and TOSLINK. A BNC S/PDIF input is also provided. The DAC features a tube output stage that uses a 5687 double triode. An E182CC/7044/7119 double triode can also be used, as can a 12BH7 with an adapter. The DAC has fully independent power supplies to the digital and analogue sections. Both supplies feature tube rectification. The high voltage tube supply uses choke input filtering. The casework, other than the aluminium front panel, is made from copper. The DAC will replay files up to 32/384kHz via USB, 24/192kHz via COAXSPDIF/BNC and 24/96 via TOSLINK. From $3950.
Quick note about the sound — we didn’t do a side-by-side, but I am somewhat familiar with the sound of a Living Voice R80 OBX ($65,000/pair, shown in “Glossy Ebony”). I haven’t reviewed them, but Michael Lavorgna has a bang-on review over at Twittering Machines, and that should get you started. Just know that my jealousy here is pretty extreme — I want a pair of these speakers with a lust that is entirely unseemly.
Now, to my ears, this Zola DAC does sound different than the old one. While the old one was perhaps guilty of a “golden” presentation, the Zola DAC is not — it’s even more revealing, and bad recordings clearly sound … well, bad. Some of you might be tempted to say “uncolored” or “neutral,” and I wouldn’t quibble with either. But what I heard was immediacy — it was like falling into a well and to hell with Lassie. At $4,000, and with the customizability of tube-rolling, this seems like another winner for BorderPatrol. As soon as more fans get the word, he’s gonna sell out.
From
Triode Pete, the cables were my familiar loom. And that is a very good thing. And I’m not the only PTA’er who agrees (you can, obviously, consider us fans).
Power Cords: “The
Obsession NCF”, Audiophile power cord, with Furutech FI-50 NCF connectors. Used with the PI Audio Group UberBUSS power distribution unit. – $1499 each.
“
High Power Digital American II”, Audiophile power cords used with the BorderPatrol Amplifier power supplies – $749 each.
“
Digital American II”, Audiophile Digital power cords used with the BorderPatrol ZOLA DAC – $549
Speaker Cables: “
Bi- Wired American Speaker Cables with TWL Jumpers”, Audiophile bi-wired speaker cables terminated with premium Cardas CAB bananas – starting at $1099. Jumpers at $299 per set.
Interconnects: “
Spirit II” RCA interconnects, Hybrid material design utilizing Ohno Continuous Cast 7N Copper – starting at $399/pr.
Digital Interconnects: “
Freedom” ethernet cable with premium Telegärtner RJ-45 connectors – starting at $249 each. “Passion” USB cable, a true 90-Ohm USB cable with combined power & data leads..
A last-gen Innuos server (ZENith and Phoenix) provided all the digital pathways. I’m told the Next-Gen gear will clearly outpace — I’m ready for that.
Thanks, Scot!
