Audio Horizons 3.1 DAC with every upgrade available "A wolf in sheeps clothing"

I have one Audio Horizons 3.1 DAC with a 32/192 chip in it. I am the original owner and it has been upgraded from its original 3.0 version to the 3.1.  My asking price is a real steal for what I have invested in it.  It has worked flawlessly me for me for all the time I have owned it.

This DAC is a real sleeper giving performance which far exceeds my asking price.  Audio Horizons is a small one man operation located in Sacramento, California.  Joseph Chow does all the design and building of these units.  While his company is not well known compared to some of the big boys such as Audio Research, VAC or Aesthetix his gear can hold its own with any of them.  A friend had a highly regarded Aesthetix Calypso preamp but after comparing it with my AH 2.3 he felt there was no comparison....The AH was far superior.  The DAC is similar in sonic quality to the preamp but once again just doesn't garner the interest due to a lack of knowledge of Joseph Chow's products and how they are designed and built.

Upgrades include 4 copper foil Vcaps, tubed power supply, upgraded wiring, AH platinum fuse (which is the best I have heard), furutech gold plated IEC, 32/192 chip.

This unit is extremely versatile in that it will allow either AES/EBU or 75ohm digital cable as well as outputs that are balanced or single ended. 

Tubed power supply uses an EZ 80 or 81 and the 2 output tubes are from the 6922 family thus a wide variety of tubes would be available to the end user resulting in a wide variety of sonic choices being possible.  Currently there are a pair of Russian black plate 6922 equivalents from the mid 70's in the unit.  These have many similar sonic characteristics to the Siemens CCa. 

IMO, there is nothing out there that can match the sonics of this unit in this price range.  Once you have heard a tubed DAC it would be very hard to go back to SS.  This unit has a detailed sound without any etch or harshness.  The soundstage is expansive and dimensional.  The sound can be easily tailored to any individual listening preferences simply by changing the two output tubes.

Check out the Audio Horizons website for further details.  audio-horizons.com

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Below is an excerpt from Computer Audiophile from a gentleman who did a comparison of about six DAC's before he purchased the Audio Horizon's 3.1.

"At the same time I was auditioning
the AA, the Audio Horizons had arrived. I had only heard about this
company through record breaking positive reviews of their 2.3 tube
preamp by Audiogon users and a review by 10Audio. The way the dac
was described in the Audio Horizons website intrigued me a lot, and
perhaps, for nostalgic reasons, I was very attracted to a truly
handcrafted machine. The Audio Horizons offer was also a DAC only solution, I wanted a dac and a preamp in one box and since AH had such an amazing reputation with preamps and most of the analogue section of the dac was shared with their famous 2.3 preamp, I asked them if it could be possible to build a custom DAC/Preamp
with a high quality stepped passive volume control, and they said yes,
but before this happened, they urged me to listen to the DAC as is, reason for this was their 30 day audition program only applied to non custom equipment, so i did...


The selection of components that I chose for the 30 day audition already placed the dac in a custom category, at least compared to the other options I auditioned. The TD3.1 DAC
is based on the newest AKM 32bit chip and push pull tube (E88CC)
analogue output circuitry, but it has many different denominations
according to the level of components chosen, and the price varied from
$2995 to close to $5000, the one I chose to evaluate was their top of
the line 3.1SV with NOS Tubes, which included:

1. All silver/teflon internal wiring


2. CuTF V-Caps (Capacitors)


3. Vishay premium resistors


4. Black Gate capacitors


5. A bank of 4 Hammond Coils at the output


6. Chassis damping package + solid rosewood sides


7. Harmonic Alignment package


8. Furutech fuses


9. Siemens CCa NOS tubes (I later added Herbies Ultrasonic Rx dampers)

After the unboxing I was a bit
surprised, I had gotten used to British and German made products where
precision craft is SOTA and clean aesthetics rule, the Audio Horizons in
comparison looked artisanal, you could sense the handcraft that
visually connected with the human labor that built it, the chassis was
strong and well made, but it didnt compare with the material quality of
the AA or even the AMR, however there was something appealing about the
AH visual construction, the wood side panels made it look like a vintage
piece which contrasted the hi-tech look of the AMR and to some extent
the AA.


After listening to the AA I didnt
have high expectations. I connected the AH, waited 30min for warming up
the tubes, then played Arve Henriksen’s Chiaroscuro, I felt goosebump
after goosebump, something magical began to substitute the air around
me, an event that can only be described as pure musicality. To be fair,
I have always had a passionate relationship with the Album, I still can
remember the goosebumps I had when I first auditioned the Kharma’s, but
having this feeling again became the sign, I needed to audition this DAC with respect!


Record after record, the AH could
not be reproached, I thought that you could only achieve this level of
liquidity with the most esoteric 16bit Non-Oversampling-Dac’s,
namely Kondo KSL or Audio Note DAC5, to be able to listen to 24/192
recordings in this way was a revelation, very close to my analogue kit
and many times equal or better. The sense of space was there – a quality
I always felt lacking with digital –, the backgrounds were not pitch
black, they had spatial texture, depth, atmosphere! The bass was
musically solid, strings sounded like strings, piano sounded like piano,
I was feeling the air of the trumpet, voices were in my room. I was
sold!


Comparing it with the AA was not that difficult, each DAC
had its own personality, the AA was very dynamic and clear without
sacrificing musicality, the AH was musical and liquid without
sacrificing dynamics and clarity, where the AH leaped ahead was in the
way it rendered the sounds of silence, the textured background I just
referred to, this is something that the AA could not equal, its
backgrounds were blacker but in a vacuum, to empty be able to parallel
vinyl or better, a live chamber concert."

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PLEASE CHECK OUT MY FEEDBACK AND PURCHASE WITH CONFIDENCE!!

CONUSA sales only

Please note that several of the screw holes are a bit stripped so the screws go in but don't come out without a bit of upward pressure on the top plate.  It's nothing major but wanted to mention it in the interest of full disclosure.