The Tron DAC is just amazing

Spoiler – this is a gush piece

Caveat – in the interests of full disclosure, I must set out at the start that I have, since buying so much kit from him, become friends with GT and am inevitably biased. Please read with that in mind.

Story – I am now the lucky owner of a Tron DAC and have been running it in for the past fortnight and a half. This is a very difficult to obtain item since GT primarily makes amps – pre, power and phono – and seems reluctant to jump onto the digital bandwagon since he is adamant he gets a better sound from vinyl. My counter argument has always been that just because vinyl sounds better than digital doesn’t mean digital doesn’t sound good too! I’m a massive fan of digital - it gives me access to music, frequently music I didn’t know I owned. Vinyl sounds great but I get more enjoyment, overall, through my computer and feed into a DAC.

And now I have replaced the eponymous DacMagic (with tweaks) with a Tron DAC. In some respects it is a backwards step – fewer glowing blue lights, only two inputs, valves that eventually go off, and a maximum 16-bit, 44.1KHz capability. It doesn’t oversample, upsample or even graze.

Yet this is unquestionably the best DAC I have ever heard – in some respects the best bit of equipment I’ve ever bought, including the other Tron kit I have. I’ve owned the dCS Elgar, Lindemann d680, Audio Synthesis DAX, Sony SCD1, and heard DACs or CD players from Naim, Weiss, Audio Note, Esoteric, Audio Research, CJ and Meitner (albeit not in my system with the occasional exception) and I’m just bowled over. And it’s not even the top model.

The most confusing thing about this DAC is how difficult it has been to pin down exactly what makes it so much better. I’m still struggling to get that feeling that the performer is in the room, that further dissolving of veils between the original event and its reproduction, although I’m now much closer than ever with its’ introduction. I’m going to change speaker cables & interconnects and upgrade my mains power eventually (have run out of money now).

But, every other DAC or CD/SACD player I’ve owned has sounded artificial in comparison. Not necessarily in terms of basic tonality, but something ineffable that makes everything that went before sound like a recording, and a fairly hard and clinical one. The interplay between performers, the sense of dynamic tension, the flow of the music, the unexpected extra notes and noises I had never noticed yet made perfect sense – these are all things I associate with the best vinyl/analogue reproduction. There seems to be no loss of detail, treble and bass extension, yet somehow it is completely easy to enjoy – like a record.

I’m smitten. I suspect products like the top Audio Note, Meitner and similar DACs may match (or, who knows, exceed?) what the Tron can do, but they can be much more expensive – the Tron isn’t cheap, starting at £3.5k IIRC, but it is cheap-er! I mention those two brands because they seem to have produced a sound that most closely aligns to what the Tron can do, to my ears. Naim, Weiss, Esoteric etc – all just better examples of ‘everything else’ to my ears, they still fundamentally miss what makes music sound like music.

I urge anyone in the market for a DAC to go and listen to one. It should sound great in any system, but the more transparent and dynamic your system, the more you’ll appreciate the benefit of natural, unforced and realistic dynamics that come out of this unprepossessing box.

I remain naively confident that true audiophiles won’t be swayed by sexy blue lights, hefty metalwork and willy-waving numbers, and will judge on sound quality grounds. With that in mind, it’s just a mystery to me why GT’s kit doesn’t get huge attention. Word of mouth seems to keep his order books more than full, but it’s a major shame that more publicity doesn’t follow automatically. Why? I have the evidence in my living room. Others should listen and follow suit.