BASS is just Amazing! Smooth, neutral, sweet mids, crisp highs, definitely brings life back to CD's. Built quality.

CHEAP LOOKS!! very cheezy looking. For some reason the design is not my taste but this is a definite keeper.

Colombo - Sri Lanka, N. California USA.
VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. I got myself into a very big suprice. By far the best DAC I have heard! I got the Piggy back upgrade done approximately $250 or something around there. Mr. Poon did an awesome job!!
I liked the Monarchy Audio DAC 22B more than Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista 21, Monarchy was very very Musical KNOCKING BASS! beautiful. I also like the fact it has XLR options, input and output. Brilliant imaging, very crisp, detailed enough and BASS!! Its very musical. It out ranks DACs that are 24bit 192kHz. I use it with the DIP Classic and linked to the DIP upsampler going to the DAC 22B and its a Killer DAC system.

Similar Products Used:

Musical Fidelity X-DAC V3 and X-10 V3.
Musical Fidelity Tri Vista 21
Bel Canto DAC 2
Benchmark DAC 1
PS Audio Digital Link III
California Audio Labs Alpha

I am a speaker designer for our Raudio speakers. Just before last Christmas, I selected a DAC from a few moderate priced DACs to demonstrate our products in the WCES 97 in Las Vegas. I used a PS Audio Ultra link 2 DAC to compare with Aragon D2A2, Parasound, Audio Alchemy V3.0, Monarchy (limited edition), etc. Finally I chose the Monarchy. Monarchy is the best for the definition and vocals except the bass is a bit less than PS Audio. While the Aragon, Audio Alchemy, Parasound were not in good performance as compared to Monarchy in every aspects. The price for Monarchy is just half the price of the PS Audio Ultra Link 2 ! I am very satisfied with the Monarchy Limited Edition DAC.

In my years as a music lover,I've own numerous "dac"from audio alchemy 1.1 to audio Lab,and I've never enjoyed music like I do now,why? because I missed the sound of--you guessed it VINYL! well not any more,heh heh, now I own a dac that do justice to this ears,THE "MONARCHY M22A" it's the most musical ever sweet high, clear grainless mid,deep tight bass,imaging,soundstaging,depth, all are wonderful,I now can sit in front of my electa amator for hours,how good? Well this is the first time I took four days leave to enjoy it in my 23years of working life.This dac uses dual PCM-63K BURR BROWN multi bitdac.Affordable dac at high end sound.(ps.grab a combak harmonic tuning device and place it on those chipsµ scan underneath it).

This is the second review in my MONARCHY series, the first being on the MONARCHY DeLux 100 class-A mono-blocks, of which I basically raved and tauted them as the best amp value in existence.
Now on to the MONARCHY 22B-LIMITED EDITION DAC I took possession of a while ago.....

Build quality is absolute first rate, both internally and external componentry is top-shelf and executed with precision fabrication. Input/output terms are of very high quality (there are so many quality terminations these days that name brands are almost meaningless unless you are modifying a component). This DAC has all the operational bell and whitles I could ask for including a set of RCA- Digital outputs, a nice touch. Most importantly are the balanced outputs which announce this DAC as a true high-end device and that the designer thought his design through properly...something I see in EVERY one of CC Poons products. Mr. Poon appears to have that level of designing mastery that separates the, "Well we should have"...designers from the..."Of course it has"...designers... I hate being the alpha test bed for designers who dont think their products through properly before being released to the public....Thank you, Mr. Poon.

Ok... I dont have alot of experience with outboard DAC devices, but I do have about 20 years of high-end listening both professionally and casually. I've owned one hellova lot of gear and borrowed, used, demo'd 3 times that amount when I designed speakers for a living. A CD to me is a CD, played thru a single chassis player or a separate set-up so the DAC is just another piece of digital meat with a purpose and that is how I addressed its performance. I came from using a Sony XA7Es player, a Analog Research Player(a custom player designed by a friend), a new DENON 3000 CD player and a SOny DVDS7000 player. Both the DENON and SONY were used both as comparative players and transports for the Monarchy 22B. The 22B has seen a slew of gear used to both drive it and benefit from it, including INFINITY IRS-5 monsters and a few smaller monitors, all of very good and well known(to me) performance capabilities. Both tube gear and SS gear were used, a mountain of various cables and compared to a really superb VPI MARK-4 analog set-up.

I REALLY like the MONARCHY 22B DAC....ALOT. It is detailed, smooth, airy, provides a beautiful soundstage and has bass performance that is tight, accurate and seemingly bottomless. Used with the SONY 7000 player it is an absolutely superb digital front end that I could live with for many years and more importantly I firmly beleive it truly a "reference" set-up, that I will use to evaluate other components. I enjoyed the performance of the SONY 7000/22B more than the Sony XA7ES, finding it less analytical (or digital) and more akin to the natural performance of a very,very good vinyl presentation, it just sounds more "right" to me on most source materials.. Now the best part is that the SOny XA7Es is a $3000 player (available for about $2200 I think), while the SOny 7000/22B set-up runs about $1500-1700 (probably less). Also considering that my 22B is going in for the "dual chip" up-grade, I expect its enhanced performance to widen the diparity even more and thus its dollar value to increase, making it one hellova DAC for the money.

I am therefor highly impressed by this DAC's performance, low-cost and build quality (the big 3), add in the balanced input/output and you've one damn fine, well-rounded component I give a firm 5 stars to.

Given that EVERY piece of MONARCHY gear I have used has the same level of performance and value, I therefor see that what we have here is a designer and company who is breaking the rules of engagement in high-end audio by providing what most of us want...ALL OF IT....and keep a decent balance in our checkbooks.

Next I am to get the MONARCHY DIP and SUPERDIP devices, used in series together, they supposedly produce magic at an absurdly low price..I'll let you know.

Halleluya !!!

KN

The latest Monarchy Digital Audio Converter, Model M22C is absolutely breathtaking in musical detail and the overall enjoyment of music. Coupled with the super DIP,the two make a very synergistic match in capturing ALL the details of the digital to analog interface. I like the idea of eliminating a separate preamp and using the line stage built in which does everything right anyway. The M22C works great with separate tube or Solid state amplifiers, due to its built in volume control, makes interfacing easy. I have only praise for Monarchy and Mr. Poon who has assembled a very talented engineering team and produces great audio products. Congratulations!!! to job well done, I can finally enjoy music and less focus on the hardware and electronics. I give a five star rating for the M22C for sound quality, build and overall presentation of the package.

The Monarchy Super Drive DIP is the subject for this review. Not the standard DIP. I use the Super DIP with my Parasound CDP-1000 (as transport), and my Monarchy 22A D/A converter (upgraded and modified by Monarchy Audio). The three units are linked together with Transparent HDL digital cables. I like the use of the high speed buffer on the BNC jack of the Super DIP, it mates well with my BNC input on my DAC. As compared to the regular DIP, which uses a regular transformer issolation technique. Also, most don't know the impedance of the regular DIP's digital out's are 166 ohms! The Super DIP's BNC is 75 ohms. (What coaxial SPDIF should be). Even though, it uses superb line filtration, and voltage regulation, I use a Transparent PowerLink Super power cord for additional filtering, as this unit is purely digital.....i.e. noisy. Also, the regular DIP doesn't have as an extensive power supply as the Super does.
Excellent for the price. I recommend 5 stars!!!! Try it!!