Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC. Combined Reviews all claim its the Finest DAC they have Ever Heard.
Now at True Audiophile
Rarely have we ever seen a product that has stunned the professional audio reviewing world. Each and every review states the Mola Mola Tambaqui is the finest DAC they have ever heard. One put it up against a $150,000.00 and they said it was a hair better. Hence our headline -- Mini Review by True Audiophile
Available for in-home demo if you live in the Portland area and are serious about audio.
Here's a couple customer reviews:
One person called screaming into the phone, "Worth every penny!"
Another "excellent and the kind of thing I’m looking for. It is head and shoulders above..."
"Like the Mola Mola Kula, the Tambaqui DAC is one of the most exceptional audio components I have heard.
Let me repeat that, the Tambaqui is THE best sounding DAC I have heard in my system.
Period.
And there have been many. It may be the jewel of the Mola Mola line. It checks all the boxes that I most care about:
- Delivering full, but completely natural tone, no hint of stridency in any octave.
- Transient speed and natural decay is highly realistic.
- An uncanny ability to convey room ambience in the recording.
- Stunning overall control and bass grip.
- The delivery of music with a 3-dimensionality and airiness that is on a new and higher level in my experience.
The words lucidity and illumination keep coming to mind when listening. It’s as though the middle and deeper reaches of the sound stage are gently illuminated. Making listening a more visual experience.
I am enticed to walk around the soundscape in my mind. I feel I am hearing the air and space in front, behind and around a given instrument or voice.
Another quality that is simply wonderful is its reproduction of macro and micro dynamics through very complex passages. Without any blurring or flattening of the image.
The long and fading decay of cymbal or flute can be heard within a crescendo or complex passage maintaining its precise position with its separate and differing level of loudness.
I have not heard another DAC that can do this quite so convincingly. Like the Kula the Tambaqui is not inexpensive, but in my mind it is a good value given its exceptional capabilities.
While I have not heard one, the Kula with the Tambaqui module integrated into one chassis could represent even greater value." ... Jay, TA Reviewer (who also moonlights for many audio magazines)
Call for pricing. Not our choice, a demand in order to be a Mola Mola dealer.
Now check out the professional reviewer's take
Aspiration vs Reality
This line has brought up some serious considerations with us. On the face of it, wow, this gear is expensive.
However, if you read or watch all the reviews, it becomes crystal clear how superior these products are to others. As we said, we've never seen a product that has been unilaterally raved about like Mola Mola.
With that fact in mind, is it really expensive? Think about always upgrading and total that up. We're confident it will easily meet or quickly exceed the price of these units.
Think on it. Read the reviews. Then feel confident these products will be your reference source for many many years. No upgrade yearning or pressure anymore.
Enjoy the Music
Mola Mola Tambaqui Hi-Res Stereo DAC. An aAstonishing Benchmark in Musical Expressiveness and Transparency.
Herb Reichert - Stereophile
This Mola Mola ...made recordings sound bold, solid, and blue-sky clear but never cold or hard. It put fingers-on-strings tangibility into my current streaming obsession: The Art of Segovia (24/96 FLAC DG/ Qobuz). The Tambaqui-Halo matchup made Andrés Segovia sound direct, unfettered, and unmitigated, like a direct-to-disc LP.
On all the recordings I tried, the Tambaqui seemed to expose the core, or body, of recorded sound in a way that upped the intensity of my listening experience.
Michael Lavorgna - HiFi Reviews
Breathtaking...The Tambaqui’s overall presentation is dense and taught, muscular is a descriptive that kept coming to mind, coupled with rich texture and tone. It is also seemingly silent in that music plays out in a very precise, super well defined space. If there’s spatial information encoded into your music, the Tambaqui will pull it out and re-present it in your room with near-physical presence. This sense of control touched the entire frequency range from way down low to the tippy top for an even-handed presentation of music’s full voice.
After spending real time with the Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC, it is easy to conclude that it is among the most engaging and full-bodied DACs I’ve had the pleasure to live with. It joins that small number of digital to analog converters whose performance transcends technology to present music with no strings attached.
Steve Guttenberg - Audiophiliac
The best sounding DAC I've Heard!
See Full Review Here or on our photo page
CHRISTIAAN PUNTER - HiFi Advice
With the Tambaqui, Mola-Mola has created a truly superb DAC. With its precise, neutral, and articulate yet delicate, fluid, gentle, and refined sound, it is bound to appeal to a wide array of music lovers.
Grover Neville - Parttimeaudiophile
Fascinating. My interpretation of that, and my listening experience with the two Mola Mola products I have in currently is that they do indeed seem to compete with $40,000 gear rather than other $8,000-$12,000 gear.
Bruno Putzeys (designer) has mentioned, on various online forums, that he had a shopping list of sorts when designing the Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC that includes the following:
- No noise floor modulation
- Negligible distortion from tiny signal levels up to full output
- Jitter elimination down to very low frequencies
- Digital filters with negligible in-band ripple (i.e. no pre-echo)
- Digital filters with moderately slow transition (i.e. reasonably short ring tails)
The first thing I notice about the Mola Mola Tambaqui is just how much detail comes through when playing music. ... the Tambaqui has a kind of lit-up sunny warmth to its high end. Like a vegan with an antler-lamp, the Tambaqui is a bundle of paradoxes.
... an openness and sense of extreme detail, it is accompanied by a liquidity and smoothness to the transients and spatial presentation that are very alluring. Most DACs I’ve listened to recently tend towards the occasionally two-dimensional, sometimes insubstantial presentation of Delta-Sigma modulation DACs. On the other hand, resistor-to-resistor DACS often have a reputation for sounding somewhat warm, sort of hazy but more substantial and viscerally punchy. While I can think of plenty of exceptions and variations in both of those categories, I can confidently say the Mola Mola Tambaqui sounds nothing like either of those DACs, at least not like any of the ones I’ve heard or have on hand.
Clement Perry - Stereotimes
HOLY MOLA! he Mola Mola Tambaqui provides a level of excellence that is especially rewarding when you consider it retails for only $13,400. Expensive? Yes, but with the upsurge of external DAC's becoming more popular once again, it's not unusual to see some uber-priced units exceeding $100k. Considering the amalgam of features that come as standard here, the types of in and out connections, its 32-Bit DSD DAC chipset with an excellent volume attenuator, it's going to take hard work finding a better-equipped performer. If you're in the market for perhaps the best stand-alone DAC available on the market but don't have $100k to spend you owe it to yourself to hear what Bruno Putzeys has created for a fraction of the asking price in the Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC. You just may thank me!
And many many more, just Google it.
NOTE: Price on Request.
NOTE: Being as highly regarded as the Tambaqui is, that means severe back orders. We do our best to always have ONE in stock. The factory is dealing with 100 back orders. We get as many as we're allotted.
These are on perpetual backorder, however, we've been able to secure several. First come, first fulfilled.
DIGITAL THAT’S AS GOOD AS ANALOG? (insane to even suggest)
Responding to popular demand, Mola Mola launched their ultra famous discrete DAC as a stand alone separate unit.
Mola Mola’s Tambaqui DAC is the perfect upgrade for owners of complete high-end systems who want to lift their digital sources to another level.
The converter is a two board stack. On the first board, all incoming digital audio is upsampled to 3.125MHz/32 bits and converted to noise shaped PWM.
On the other board are two mono DACs, in which a discrete 32- stage FIR DAC and a single-stage 4th order filtering I/V converter, convert the PWM into analogue with a breathtaking 130dB SNR. This is near the theoretical limit for 24-bit files and far beyond that of even quad-speed DSD. Uniquely, distortion remains below the noise floor even for full scale signals.
With the addition of a lossless digital volume control and headphone outputs, it becomes the ideal control hub of a minimalist audio system for music lovers who have moved onto a digital sources only system.
This DAC, combined with a pair of Mola Mola Kaluga monoblocks constitutes the finest digital replay chain available, irrespective of price. Read or watch the reviews. You'll find this is a truthful statement rather than a typical over hyped one.
ROOM READY
Link to all Mola Mola products
[[[specification_start]]]
OPERATING PRINCIPLE
PWM DAC with 32-stage discrete analogue FIR output stage. Avoids “sigma delta” tones and “R2R” glitch and low-level linearity errors.
Asynchronous upsampling to 3.125MHz/32 bit. 7-th order noise shaper clearing 80kHz band. Each input rate has an optimized upsampling filter chain.
I/O
Optical (Toslink)
S/PDIF (Cinch)
AES/EBU (XLR)
USB type B
Ethernet (Roon Ready)
Bluetooth (SBC, AAC, APTX, LDAC)
I²S over HDMI
Balanced output (XLR)
Headphone output (6.3mm Jack, Balanced XLR 4pin)
2 programmable trigger outputs (3.5mm Jack)
Processing balance and input gain offset
Selectable output levels
Phase invert
SUPPORTED FORMATS
PCM up to 384kHz/32 bits (>192kHz and >24 bits via USB and Roon only)
DoP and Native DSD up to quad speed (USB and Roon only)
PERFORMANCE
Full-Scale Output Level (XLR): 18dBu
Full-Scale Output Level (headphone): 18dBu
Signal to Noise Ratio: 130dB
THD, IMD: not measurable (estimated -140dB)
Bandwidth: Up to 80kHz (apodizing response)
Integrated jitter: <1ps from 10Hz upwards, <300fs from 1kHz upwards
Jitter rejection: >80dB at 1Hz after 20 seconds of loc
CONTROL
Front button source selection and volume setting
4 programmable presets
(Premium) Remote Control
Mola Mola Remote app
DIMENSIONS AND WEIGHT
7.9 in (W) x 4.3 in (H) x 12.6 in (D)
11.5 LB
[[[specification_end]]]
