A quick spin with a vintage dac - Monarchy M24

Monarchy M24 dac and line stage

Features the PCM 63 chip, tube output stage for the dac. Listening via coax with Mutec 3+ USB bridge.

Warmish sounding with an emphasis on smooth presentation. Manages to extract very good spatial information with good ambiance cues. Seems a bit tipped in the mids like around 800-1k resulting in a slightly forward yet warmish tone. Manages to separate out voices and instruments well despite this and quite a bit better than the Bifrost Multibit. Focus and placement is really good and that is the magic of the Mutec 3+ USB. Strings lack some upper harmonics, and fingers sliding on strings sound a bit rounded, but still have detail. Highs are about as smooth and polite as one can imagine, sounding rolled if you will, starting around 3k imo. Attack on highs is a bit soft and tone is toward the full side on bells and brass. It has no peaky crunch problem like the Z-dac. Bass is balanced with a tilt toward being full,, but lacks that last bit of extension.

Kind of reminds me of the Bifrost Multibit in overall tone. The Monarchy is a bit better on depth and some ambiance retrieval but a bit less so on width vs the Bifrost Multibit as I recall. The Bifrost Multibit has better dynamics and is a bit less tipped in the mids. I actually like the midrange space a bit more than I did the Bifrost Multibit. Overall a nice vintage piece, if I may call a ten year old dac that. This would be a great dac for those looking toward a non-digital sounding dac when all else seems too bright.

 

Nice... sounds like something I could like.

 

I checked the price is around 1000€ on internet, then the sound pretty is good for it's price. Have you tried other usb bridges?

 

Yes, now listening to the Bryston with it. Sounds pretty good so far. Also the Mutec 3+ with toslink to the dac was a bit different sounding. The sound is really quite good with a bridge, no way to test via optical and my mac. I only have full size Toslink and I know how an adapter can muck things up. May have to try and find the adapter in the name of pseudo science, hahaha.

I would expect the newest version of the dac might be pretty good as well, I think it uses 1704 chips and has USB if I am not mistaken. $1590 list.

 

Update:

Evan with great new Ediswan tubes and Mutec 3+ fronting it, something not right with tone especially up top. Space is very good and bass is a bit warmish but nice. Stock Havana gets tone a bit better but lacks the space fo the M24. Not a bad piece, but not up to current offering for my ear.

 

I've always wanted to hear the M24. I had the NM24 for years and often heard that the M24 was better. I never found one for sale though.

 

I know this is an older post, of an even older DAC, but.......
I liked this DAC, but also happened to pick up a "spare" that had been modified. The greatest difference being that the output caps have been upgraded. The WIMA's got replaced with Rel & Matsushita. The end result is so different, it's almost jaw dropping. Tonality, low level detail, clean tight low end, "transparency". Well, I'm not too good with "audiophilia", but it's extremely nice sounding.
In talking to the guy that did the mods, (Stephen Sank, Talking Dog Transducer), he mentioned something I hadn't seen addressed before. The M24, as well as many other "tube out" DAC's use an SRPP tube circuit. The SRPP "must" see an impedance of >50k ohm. If the impedance drops much below 50k, it will cause distortion numbers to rise into the 2-3% range. I also spoke to Don Sachs who agreed with that assessment.
Could explain a bit as to the variation/diversity of experience with various "tube out" DAC's in different systems.
If it puts any context to the above. I'm pretty much "speakers only", no headphones. I have owned, Monarchy NM24, AGD M7, SFD1 mkII, SFD2, Theta Gen Va, Yggdrasil, Holo Spring L3, AMR DP-777SE. I believe the Gold face SFD1 mkII you had in your "loaner" program was the one I originally sold to "Luckbad". The above is probably of little use, just thought I'd pass it along.

 

I replaced the WIMA caps in the NM24 I owned with Mundorf Supremes and you are right the difference was not small. It is so stark that I wouldn't even consider owning a NM24 or a M24 without replacing those caps. I never heard about the impedance recommendation. When I had the NM24 it was paired with a Wyred 4 Sound STP SE which had a 64K input impedance and before that a AMB M cubed and Woo Audio WA6. I can't say I noticed anything.

I'm curious. Why the sad face?

 

On the impedance issue, the point was meant to indicate that above 50k ohm the SRPP is fine, with little variation, but with lower impedance preamps there can be an issue. Suggesting that component interactions can play a big role with SRPP out DAC's. Possibly a reason why there can be quite a variety of tube DAC impressions in different systems.
The sad face on the Audio GD is only because I feel that was the biggest $$/disappointment ratio I've experienced. There were no settings, or combinations I found that made me "want" to listen to it.

 

Yeah, I got that. Specifically I was referring to the M cubed having a slightly less than 50K impedance and the Woo Audio 6 having a impedance near 100K and me not really hearing a drastic difference in distortion between the two despite the large difference. Its kind of hard to find preamps and headphone amps with input impedances lower than 50K but there are alot of amps with specs like that. Good info considering that both the M24 and NM24 were also marketed as preamps. I had a few low impedance amps around the time I owed the NM24 but I never used it as a preamp due to its lack of a remote.