Gramophone Dreams

Since the plague arrived, several of my closest audio friends have been chattering and bugging me constantly, not about masks, vaccines, Trump, or Biden but about Bruno Putzeys's digital-to-analog converter, the Mola Mola Tambaqui. They've been sending emails and texts like pesky kids:

"Herbie! Have you tried the Mola Mola? Come on man, what's taking you so long? Is Putzeys's DAC better than my MSB? Or the dCS Bartók? Or the HoloAudio May?"

I don't mind—I like it when people pester me about products they're excited about. That type of revved-up, need-to-know anticipation is what keeps our shared audio dreams going and growing.

I get extra-happy when they are gushing about DACs. Today, digital converters, both A/D and D/A, define the leading edges of audio engineering, and we need them to keep improving.

Ten days after my second vaccine shot, I visited one of those pesky friends and got a deep listen to the fish-and-ocean–styled Tambaqui. The longer I listened, the more convinced I was that the Mola Mola was clearer and more physical-sounding than any DAC in my previous experience.

I went home inspired. I must obtain a review sample, I thought, then study it carefully and report to my readers.

A large South American freshwater fish
The made-in-The-Netherlands, Bruno Putzeys–designed Tambaqui DAC ($13,400, footnote 1) came triple-boxed. The innermost box was a foam-lined Pelican case. Inside that was the small (7.9" W × 4.3" H × 12.6" D), light (11.5lb) Tambaqui.

The Tambaqui's Greek-temple proportions, rolling-wave profile, concave face, and Nemo-esque porthole display made every other component in the bunker look boring and conventional. As I sipped my morning coffee, I read the owner's manual and installed Mola Mola's iOS app on my iPad.

The Tambaqui has seven wired digital inputs, one each of the following: USB, TosLink, S/PDIF (RCA), AES3, Ethernet, I²S over HDMI. It also supports several Bluetooth codecs: SBC, AAC, aptX, LDAC. PCM is supported up to 32/384 on the USB and network inputs and up to 24/192 on all the other wired inputs. DSD is supported natively and via DoP (DSD over PCM), although Native DSD isn't supported on Windows versions earlier than 10. MQA isn't supported at all.

According to the Mola Mola website, the Tambaqui upsamples incoming digital audio to 32-bit/3.125MHz then converts it to noise-shaped PWM (pulse width modulation) format, after which it is channeled to a "discrete, 32-stage FIR [finite impulse response] DAC and a single-stage fourth-order filtering I/V converter" that converts PWM to analog with a specified S/N ratio of 130dB.

I started with the Mola Mola connected to Bryston Audio's neutral-sounding B135³ integrated amplifier. (See my Bryston review elsewhere in this issue. The $6695 Bryston has no balanced inputs, and the Tambaqui has no single-ended outputs, but my Tambaqui review sample included XLR to RCA adapters. Hoping to complement what I perceived as the Tambaqui's slightly cool, attention-grabbing clarity, I chose the richly toned, overtly spacious Cardas Clear Cygnus single-ended interconnect.

In addition to unbalanced outputs, the Tambaqui lacks user-selectable reconstruction filters. It also lacks a power switch. You turn it on by pressing any front-panel button, and you put it in standby by pressing and holding same. My review sample came with an Apple remote, which I didn't try. I controlled the Tambaqui with Mola Mola's easy-to-navigate iOS app, running on my iPad. Mola Mola offers an aluminum "rolling wave" remote at extra cost.

The Tambaqui is Roon Ready, so I connected its Network input to my router and used it as a Roon endpoint. My Roon Nucleus+ server was hard-wired into the same network.

Listening
The first recording I listened closely to, Paganini & Schubert: Works for Violin & Piano by Vilde Frang (violin) and Michael Lifits (piano) (24/192 FLAC Warner Classics/Qobuz), left me smirking. The Tambaqui was providing some things that I've always told people digital can't provide: lifelike dynamics and meaty corporeality. I've played this recording with a variety of converters, most recently dCS's Bartók ($18,500 with headphone amp) and my long-term reference HoloAudio May (Level 3) ($4998). That day, with the Tambaqui DAC, Vilde Frang's playing displayed extra-forceful pluck and bite with rosin-on-the-bowhair descriptiveness that the Bartók and May converters could not match.

During my first days of listening, the Mola Mola's most conspicuous sonic trait was a bright, evenly illumined clarity.

The dCS Bartók and the HoloAudio May both measure extremely well; the Mola Mola Tambaqui seems likely to do the same (footnote 2). Nevertheless, each DAC imparted its character on every recording that passed through it, each alluding to the truth of the recording in a different way. In NOS mode, the HoloAudio May presented recordings solemnly, saying, "This is the whole truth." The Bartók is British; it never boasted about its talents, but one day I thought I heard it whisper, "This is the truth Mr. Reichert." Mola Mola's Tambaqui did not whisper—it declares loudly: "See! The truth is more beautiful than you thought it would be!"

On piano recordings, the Tambaqui sounded true in the same manner as the HoloAudio May in OS mode but with more dynamics and tonal brilliance, tighter, quicker bass, and denser images. On Miles Davis's Teo Macero–produced In a Silent Way (24/176.4 FLAC Columbia/Qobuz), Miles's and Herbie Hancock's notes are dosed with generous artificial reverb. The Tambaqui heightened that reverb's presence—made it seem extra-forceful—without sacrificing weight or leading-edge bite.

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.

I frequently stream a remastered version of Vladimir Horowitz: Carnegie Hall Concert, May 9, 1965 "An Historic Return." I like the program (Busoni, Scriabin, Debussy, et al.), and the recorded sound of Horowitz's piano has a purity I never get tired of hearing. With the Bartók, on the 24/192 MQA version on Tidal, which is how I usually play it, that piano sounded solid and vivid. With the no-MQA Tambaqui, Roon unfolded the same Tidal MQA file to 24/96k, but it sounded slightly muffled in comparison. Alternatively, with the Mola Mola and the same album in 24/192 FLAC, via Qobuz, the transparency, detail, and purity were off the charts. The sound from my speakers was unusually forceful and corporal.

Tambaqui without a preamp
When the Tambaqui arrived, my daily driver reference system consisted of the Bartók connected to the Rogue RP-7 preamplifier and on to the Parasound A21+ Halo power amplifier. The amp was powering the Falcon "Gold Badge" LS3/5a loudspeakers. In recent years I've used two DACs as references, both already mentioned: the HoloAudio May and the dCS Bartók.

On a morning-coffee whim, I connected the Tambaqui directly to the Elekit TU-8600S 300B amplifier, controlling the volume with the DAC's volume control. Now, it was the Elekit driving the "Gold Badge" speakers. When the music started, I cried and laughed at the same time. On Areni Agbabian's first ECM recording, Bloom (24/96 FLAC ECM/Qobuz), I heard—and saw—previously invisible molecules of live, reverberant energy. Everywhere I listened, I experienced more, stronger energy and more nuanced dynamic expression. If you're keeping a log of Wow! moments, this one was mind-opening. I'd never experienced this amount of raw clarity or textured delicacy from Qobuz or Tidal streaming.

The next day, wearing a smirk, I hooked the Tambaqui directly to the Parasound Halo A21+ amplifier driving the Falcons. This time I chose balanced AudioQuest Mackenzie XLR interconnects because the solid-core Mackenzies sound cooler and more transparent than the braided-wire Cardas Clear Cygnuses. I wanted this Mola Mola–to–Parasound audition to deliver maximum force and clarity. It did much more than that.

This Mola Mola–Parasound combo 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.

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Footnote 1: Mola Mola, Kattegat 8, 9723JP Groningen, Netherlands. Tel: +31(0)505264993. Web: Mola-Mola.nl. US distributor: GTT, 356 Naughright Rd., Long Valley, NJ 07853. Tel: (908) 850-3092 Web: gttaudio.com

Footnote 2: John Atkinson's measurements of the Tambaqui are presented in a Follow-Up review in the January 2022 issue.