ANK Dac kits.

Has anyone built or heard any of their Dac kits ? Im looking at a 4.1 kit.

 

I'd like to know too.
I have their EL34 mono blocks and i love them. I've heard the Mentor preamp and it's wonderful also. I guess their DACs will follow suit.

 

I have the ANK 3.1 Signature DAC which was assembled by Digital Pete. It has a very solid construction and uses high quality parts. Sonically it's very nice (although I don't have any other DACs to compare it to). I am actually planning on selling mine since I hardly ever listen to CDs. If you want to discuss, send me an email.

 

Hey, just building a pair of these EL34 monos right now. What tubes have you found that are most compatible?

 

I've bee through a number of EL34's - all new production.

• Shuguang 6ca7 treasure black bottle - nice tube i liked it a lot.
• Psvane EL34ph Philips Holland replica - Stunning mids, actually stunning all round but only last 6 months before one blew, also expensive.
• Psvane 6ca7-TII grey bottle - I liked this better than the treasure black. Seemed to have more texture.
• Sophia Electric EL34 Aqua - My favourite, Loved everything about this tube. It did it all for me, but also expensive (the Aussie $ is terrible)
• Gold Lion KT77 - Currently running. Initially though it was thin sounding but i've grown to like them a lot. and they're cheap!

I'm also running the Philips 5R4GYS rectifiers. Absolutely stunning, but the price has gone up.

I've also got the Mentor preamp which a beast and a giant killer. Amazing quality and sound for the price. Competes with pre's 4 times the price. And I've had the DAC 5.1 for the last 3 weeks. That's based on the Mentor.

 

I'd recommend going for the 4.1. Just got the 5.1 and it's stunning.
Brian tells me the 4.1 is 90% of the sound of the 5.1 for much less money.

 

I built the 4.1 last year.

 

I built the 3.1. It is really good in stock but worth upgrading.

 

The "Search" function is your friend. A member recently completed a DAC build and it was quite a saga as I remember.

 

know this is a old thread but never saw a follow up. What’s your thoughts on the ANK 4.1? Did you do LE or just regular?

 

Hi, it is the LE with triple cores etc, though not the signature. It took a while to sound its best for whatever reason. Sounds great to me, no issues - better than the Lampizator I had, though they both sound similar, ie full and fleshed out. I changed the output caps from Audionote copper to Jupiter copper, small difference but noticeable. Hope this helps. The build was enjoyable.

 

Thanks Mark for the update. Enjoying mine as well for 2 weeks now. I’ve also considered Changing the AN copper caps for Jupiter but I’ll prob give it a while before I reassess that. What kind of change did you notice with the Jupiters?

 

Obviously we are talking small differences, more engaging and a tad more revealing. I have to say after building it the DAC wasn't great for quite some time. I had a Lampizator as well, initially it wasn't as good as that. Now it is superb, every objectivist spitting out his or her dummy at his point, but there it is..