Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

There is a review of the DAVE by JA in the June Stereophile.  It's also on the cover.  Very positive and he does some interesting comparisons to other DACs using different technologies with shorter filter circuitry.  Give it a read and check out the measurements.  He also talks about shortcomings like no MQA decoding.  I like his reviews.  One of the things he says which I totally agree with is that the end result of the DAVE changes quite a bit depending on the other components in the chain.  Having owned one I can see where folks would come to different conclusions just based on the differing components.  It is a great DAC for the price, not much doubt about that in my mind.  But I would never say it's the best.  Even Rob Watts has said he has improved substantially on redbook when the DAVE is used with the new Chord CD transport and upscaler, Blu 2.  Waiting on mine to get here!  There are a lot of good (if not out of this world) DACs in the 8-15K range.  DAVE is one of them I would say.

The GG is a tube stage DAC.

The Merlot is SS

The Playback Design Merlot is a Chipless 1 BIT DSD dac. Andreas Koch uses a different method to in sampling rate before its passed over to the analog stages of the DAC. You might want to read into his paper work.

This DAC balances very well for its price tag against the BIG boys price tags DACs.

Many companies use FPGA and the same applies to playback design. Its the algorithm written for FPGA that matters more in the end. You can constantly update the Dacs Sounds by software instead of hardware.

@ksattic   That’s the way to do it - listen. I was just pointing out that FPGA DACs are not a Chord exclusive - several other manufacturers use FPGAs for the heavy lifting in their DACs (such as by EMM Labs in my digital gear and also MSB and dcs afaik).

Dragon...I am in Switzerland. I know all about Andreas who is a Swiss living in Cali. He is a DSD godfather. I dont know him personally, though I have met many of the people behind the famous Swiss Brands like Dartzeel, CH Precision, Audio Consulting, LumenWhite, SoundKaos, Colotube, FM Acoustics,  Heil AMT, Goldmund, Piega, Weiss, Merging, Illusonic, Manufacture Le Son,Rowen and Stenheim. No contact wth Boenicke, Studer/Revox, Soulution, SwissSonor, etc.

I also know that MERLOT IS PROBABLY BETTER DSD THAN THE PBD MPD-5, etc. Since Lampi DSD, many have stepped up their games. Its all good for the consumer. DSD is best with the least amount of processing possible applied.

One last point, Lampi is not just a tube buffer stage stuck onto a Digital section, the Tube stage is intergral. Part filter and part amplifying. The beauty is the minimalistic signal path this approach entails. So minimalistic that if you pull out just a single component the circuit collapses. Its one road leading to Rome.

Not sure if Ayre is unveiling their reference DAC in Munich this weekend, but I believe they are.  If so, I was told they went all out assault and it will be a major part of this discussion.  They are working on a few ref components and some other stuff, so I'm not sure they are showing the DAC or not.  We will find out in a few days.