Musician Delphinus R2R DAC

Conclusions

We realize we’ve compared our Delphinus to a unit that costs about forty times as much, even though it was released over a decade before this one: the Musician Audio Delphinus is an interesting unit, especially considering the balance between its size, features, and build quality. It’s a DAC that doesn’t try to impress with flashy effects: it operates with order and precision and does a good job of conveying the musical message. The bass is particularly convincing in terms of articulation and control, while the midrange maintains good neutrality, and the soundstage is sufficiently precise and coherent.

A comparison with the Playback Designs MPD5, however, highlights an important difference: the Delphinus is more by-the-book, more rigorous, more “by-the-book.” The Playback, on the other hand, possesses a different ability to let the musical performance breathe. And perhaps this is precisely the difference between a good performance and a great one. The Delphinus follows the score very well. It just lacks, every now and then, that little breath of spirit that transforms a correct performance into music; but when you look at the price list and compare it with systems in the same price range, you realize that it could truly be the “nearly definitive” system for a home audio setup.

Riccardo Mozzi