Eastern Electric Minimax Tube DAC Plus
Eastern Electric Minimax Tube DAC Plus The 4 op-amps in clear view. The two white plastic capacitors are coupling caps for the tube output stage A closer view. The OEM M2Tech USB board is at the rear of the unit The subject of this review is the Eastern Electric MiniMax Tube DAC Plus (which I will refer to as the “Plus”), which is an upgraded version of the original Minimax DAC. The original Minimax DAC was based on the Sabre ES9018 DAC chip and was unusual in offering a choice of both a solid state and tube based output stage (using a single 12AU7 tube), and volume control. In comparison, the Plus loses the volume knob and upgrades its crippled USB input (red book only for the original version!). There are also a number of component changes, including an upgrade to separate power transformers to handle its digital and analog sections, and some fine tuning in the power supply and tube output stage. Input flexibility remains excellent with a total of 5 inputs, USB, BNC, RCA, Optical and...