Aesthetix Romulus MkII CD Player/DAC

Aesthetix Romulus MkII CD Player/DAC

Aesthetix is proud to introduce the Pandora and Romulus. They join our Saturn Series, recognized around the world for outstanding performance, build quality, and user interface. High quality construction techniques include an all-aluminum chassis, stainless steel faraday cage to isolate digital sections, multiple power transformers in a stainless steel enclosure, and multiple regulation stages. These components raise the bar for all digital products and are the ideal match for our Janus and Calypso preamps, and Atlas power amplifiers.

Vacuum Tube Analog Stages
The Aesthetix reputation for state-of-the-art analog stages is continued in the Pandora, which features a current-sourced differential vacuum tube amplifier (12AX7) being fed from the DAC. Differential amplifiers have the unique ability of rejecting "common mode" signals, particularly useful in digital audio products, where high speed clocks and other digital noise can disrupt the delicate analog circuitry. Following the first differential amplifier, the audio signal is fed to the output stage, another differential amplifier based on the 6DJ8 vacuum tube. Both Pandora and Romulus feature Rel-Cap polypropylene coupling capacitors and Roederstein metal film resistors.

Dedicated and Isolated CD Transport
Romulus builds upon the Pandora's unique feature set and performance by adding a dedicated Red Book CD transport, also running from the low jitter master clock. Completely enclosed in its own faraday cage, it is electrically, mechanically and magnetically isolated from the rest of the DAC. Two separate transformers and three regulation stages are added to further isolate the transport mechanism from the DAC power supplies.

High Resolution Volume Control (+$1,000)
An optional high resolution relay-based volume control may be added to either Pandora or Romulus, allowing them to directly drive a power amplifier, ideal for many systems. This special volume control operates partially in the digital domain (for small 1dB steps) and partially in the analog domain (6dB large steps), assuring uncompromising performance.

The Romulus includes the same features and construction as Pandora, but adds a CD transport mechanism:

• CD mechanism is a Teac drive specially designed for audio, Red Book only.
• Two-transformer based power supply dedicated only to drive.
• CD clock source is ultra high quality crystal oscillator located at the DAC chip, for lowest possible jitter.
• Available in black or silver faceplate.
• Unit Weight: 40 Lbs
• Dimensions: 18" width x 4 3/8" height x 18" depth