THE MOLA MOLA KULA INTEGRATED

uberexpensive standalone units we have heard. We have not had a chance to hear the Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC, which is priced at around $13,000, however. But for those purchasing a Kula, the DAC option makes perfect sense.

Spinning The Black Circle

quite a stir among several visitors who requested LP after LP.

alert, to be perfectly upfront the Phono stage was absolutely superb in every way. It took literally a minute to select and assign the input and set the gain setting. Then we spun vinyl for days on end. We ended up starting with one of the albums we streamed from our library, the Mobile Fidelty CD version of The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys by Traffic. We have an original pink label Island pressing, and to say we were both stunned and delighted with the presentation would be an understatement.

Chris Wood’s flute, Steve Windwood’s vocals and Jim Capaldi’s drums were so nicely placed in the mix, and had so much texture, it caused

We then dove into our Beatles stash and cranked up numerous albums, including Magical Mystery Tour, Beatles ‘65, Revolver and Abbey Road, all original US pressings. There was plenty of joy to behold here. These albums sounded wonderful across the board, with character.

As with the DAC, adding the phono stage is highly recommended if purchasing the Kula.

In our experience, the phono module easily competes with pricey dedicated boxes.

Fully loaded, the elegance of this one box solution is essentially without equal. Of course, if a prospective customer has invested quite a bit in a standalone DAC or phono preamp which they prefer, the Kula, used strictly as an amplification device, is as good as it gets in the world of integrated amps in our estimation.