Monarchy Audio M24 DAC/Linestage (Upgraded) *REDUCED*

Selling a Monarchy M24 DAC/Linestage that has been upgraded by Stephen Sank of Talking Dog Transducer. I bought the DAC with a 12 month warranty and the remaining 10 months (as of the time of this posting) of warranty from Stephen Sank and is fully transferable. Shipping within CONUS only. Please note, the RCA-labeled Mullards in the below description have been replaced with JAN Phillips 12AT7 bought from TubeDepot (Matched, Balanced Triodes & Low Noise/Microphonics) I'm rating the condition as a solid 7. The faceplate is in excellent condition but the top of the case is a little scratched up though nothing that can be seen from a few ft away. Also, the lettering doesn't show up well in photos for some reason but in person it's perfectly legible and everything intact. Folks, don't let the price fool you, this is a true end-game source/pre. If it weren't for the need to immediately to purchase a car this wouldn't be for sale. Check out TAS's review of the Monarchy NM24 which won a 2016 Golden Ear award (the M24 is better). Here is the original item description from Stephen Sank. "Offered for sale is a Monarchy Audio M24 dac/linestage-preamp, upgraded & with full one year warranty from me, Talking Dog Transducer Co. It functions as a fully 24bit/96kHz-capable d/a converter, using the legendary PCM63P-K ladder dac chips, AND as a tube linestage preamp. It has two digital inputs for dac section(one coax RCA, one Toslink optical), one pair of left/right analog inputs for using just as a linestage preamp(such as for a phono stage), and has two sets of outputs. These outputs are direct dac output at fixed full output level, and volume-controlled final output from tube linestage(which is fed by the dac's tube output stage when dac is selected). While not thoroughly upgraded, what has been done achieves about 90 percent of the potential there is for sonic improvement in the unit(in terms of keeping the original circuit design). This upgrading consisted of basically three steps. 1)Replacing the horrid original Wima MKP output signal coupling capacitors in both the dac tube stage AND the linestage preamp with a combination of RelCap AudioCap PPT Theta film & foil polypropylene & RT polystyrene caps, with a Matsushita metallised polypropylene added to bring the total capacitance value to higher than original. The PPT is one of the best sounding caps on the market, as is the RT, and the pair are doing all of the finesse work in this cap combo. This single change HUGELY opens up the soundstage, spaciousness, clarity and pretty much just removes a big blanket from the sound. The second upgrade was the installation of two vintage Holland-made, Hewlett-Packard-labeled, Amperex 6DJ8/ECC88 tubes in the dac output stages and UK-made, RCA-labeled Mullard 12AT7 tubes in linestage(made minor alteration to allow linestage to use 12AT7, 12AU7 or 12AX7 tubes), both of which are vastly better in overall sound quality and long term durability than the stock Russian Sovtek tubes. Third upgrade was the removal of wildly unnecessary lowpass filter components within the dac section's tube stages, making a much more direct signal path."