Details:

Whether you are considering the Morpheus, Pasithea or the Hermes in the Sonnet range of DACs please contact Terry on 0419448452 to discuss options and or to arrange a private listening session here at GC HiFi.

Pasithea, the personification of relaxation and meditation. It is fair to say that in our latest design this has been achieved. A new DAC from Sonnet Digital Audio placed above the Morpheus, with better specifications and more versatile. But above all, a soundscape as if it had come directly from the recording engineer's mixing console, without any degradation. There are few words to describe a product that does its work so neutrally. This is the Pasithea in a nutshell.

Because of the enormously energy-efficient electronics, there was room to add even more high-end technology within the dimensions of the standard enclosure.. Eight dacs were used to take various specifications to greater heights. Linearity , lower distortion , even at extremely low levels and a noise floor 10 dB lower than the Morpheus. The eight SDA-3 modules developed for this design collectively have a very low output impedance so that any load can be driven. Flexibility has also been increased and inputs such as I2S and USB are standard without having to swap modules.

Digital to Analog Conversion with lossless volume control.

The Sonnet range gives you more weight, body, tonal richness, and a more natural sense of the space of the recording. Or to put it more plainly, it fleshes out your music more! This new range does a wonderful job of presenting even the most complex music in a natural and inviting manner with every last ounce of nuance in tact. There’s no artificial sounding edge, no sense of a flat cutout image, basically none of digital’s nastier stuff. In some cases this can also come with a somewhat dark and muddy sound but that is absolutely not the case with the new Sonnet range. It allows you to hear deep into the recording and the recording’s quality. This is somewhat of a good news/bad news proposition in that you’ll really hear what’s there.

For pairing with very sensitive electronics, it is possible from the menu to attenuate the signal by a further 10dB, in addition to the physical attenuator. And all this with a extremely low impedance  (XLR output) so that any amplifier with whatever sensitivity can be driven.

Special attention to linearity. In addition to the fact that a dac should have no errors so that the data in the digital domain matches the value in the analog domain, noise plays another important factor here. If the noise is low it will be possible to  make the last steps visible so that there is a real 24 bit performance.

The linearity plot below was made on the Pasithea. These low noise figures allow a better dynamic range to be obtained and it should be clear via measurements if the last bits become visible. The linearity plot is set to a range of -160 dB. If the dac module is capable as a result of its low noise and high linearity, then the first bits should show up as stair steps. The more bits involved the smaller the steps become until they are no longer visible and the plot changes to a straight line.

Options

The MQA module is available as an option and will be recognised as soon the module is installed in its socket. The display on the front panel will tell you when MQA content is played like for instance "MQA" or "MQA studio". A standard MQA file is based on older enhanced recordings while the "MQA Studio" sign will be used in case of modern recordings where MQA is used during the entire recording process.

Pasithea Specifications

Balanced Non oversampling DAC
Four SDA-3dac modules per channel in differential mode
Power supply: 30VA 110/115V AC 220/230V AC 60/50Hz. Power required max 16 Watts
Input: 1x optical, 1x coaxial and 1x AES/EBU, 1x I2S and 1x USB input.
Output: 1x stereo pair single ended 2 Volts RMS. In -10dB mode 0.66 Volts RMS
Output: 1x stereo pair XLR balanced 4 Volts RMS In -10dB mode 1.33 Volts RMS
Frequency Response: 44.1 kHz sampling 1Hz – 20 khz -1dB
Frequency Response: 192 kHz sampling 1Hz – 65 kHz – 3dB and 384kHz (USB)
Distortion: 0.001% THD
Channel separation: 125dB
Noise Floor: -160 dB related to 4 Volt RMS
Output impedance: RCA 100 Ohm, XLR 16 Ohms, Physical -10dB setting 8 Ohms
Sampling rate: Optical 44.1 – 96 kHz
Sampling rate: Coax and AES/EBU: 44.1 -192 kHz
Sampling rate: USB 44.1 – 384kHz
Aluminum six button remote control included.

Dimensions 290 x 250 x 60 mm
Weight 3.5KG
Possible options:
MQA module (standard not included)