Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

I'm definitely enjoying this thread and following Matt's journey. Lots of really great DACs being mentioned.

I've had my Aesthetix Romulus back with the Signature upgrade installed for about 5 weeks now. I'm very, very happy with the sound (it's predessors included the Meitner MA-1 and a brief fling with the Lampi Big 5 w/DSD--the Lampi had some problems and so I didn't get to hear it for long or at its best I'm sure).

I'm loving the Romulus Sig and having lots of fun tuberolling (my pre is the Aesthetix Calypso and I love that it uses the same tubes). I haven't been able to get the Romulus Sig to play DSD files via its spdif inputs (supposed to via DoP of course), but I'm not sure if the problem is the DAC one my Audiobyte Hydra X usb converter. But DSD via the Romulus USB input is sublime. That beying said, I think where I truly prefer the Romulus Sig over my prior DACs is on PCM & redbook.

Enjoy Matt!

Randy

Darn auto correct. I meant predecessor DACs and that I wasn't sure if the problem playing DSD via spdif lies with the DAC OR the usb converter :)!

Audiolabyrinth and Rrsclyde - Thank you both for the input and info. I am certainly open and interested in giving the Aesthitix Signature DAC a listen (either the Romulus or Pandora). I'm just waiting to get the email or call from John (my local dealer) to offer me a few days to give it a listen. As always, I'll post my results.

Does anyone know what DAC chip the Aesthtix uses? Just curious.

Alex, you definitely lost me on your last post, but I am truly enjoying the back and forth between you and Steve (as long as it stays civil and collegial). I am learning a ton!!!

Alex said... "Yes, I have read your posts that you don't like the sound of AKM DACs, but try to convince the owners of Esoteric K-01, for example, that their player
doesn't sound good because it has AKM inside."

Bingo! A couple of years ago I had an Esoteric K-01 loaner in my system for quite a spell, and its music with 4X upsampling and Slow Delay 2 (apodizing) filter was sheer magic to my ears.

Let us not get too hung up about the quasi religious propriety of using a particular chip, electronic part, sub-circuit design tactic, etc... The totality of a component is often much more than the raw sum of its parts... While sometimes, sadly enough, it ends up being much less than the aforementioned sum of such promising parts.

G.

Audiolabyrinth - the problem with trying to evaluate D/A chips by listening to different DAC implementations is the following:

Some D/A chips, like Op-Amps, require a bit more babying in the power delivery in order to deliver the goods. If the same lame treatment for power delivery is done for all D/A chips, then the ones with better on-die power delivery and better packaging/power-pin assignments will always win. On the other hand, if one optimizes the power delivery, the results may be very different. The better D/A chip may have poor on-die power structure, but actualy sound more natural. So you see, the answer is not black-and-white.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio