I was a proud owner of a Denafrips Terminator DAC, which was significantly better than any other DAC I’ve had in my system before.
A friend of mine who has an entire Audio Mirror system including their big horn speakers showed up at my door with this brand new Audio Mirror DAC. It was not even burned in properly after only playing a few hours. I was absolutely sure that the big Terminator was in another league and there was no room for comparison. Well, it turned out I was not exactly right. They sounded different. What I really liked about the Audio Mirror was how it reproduced vocals and bass. Vocals was so smooth and real and the bass had a lot more details compared to the Terminator. Simply the Audio Mirror was more musical than the Terminator.
I realized how good the Analogue Devices AD1865NK chip was and went on a mission to find the best AD1865 DAC I can afford. I am currently building an Audio Note Kits 5.1 DAC. Once I get all the parts and complete the build it would be compared again to the Audio Mirror and can report back. If you see the ANK here sale you would know why :). One of these two DACs would go in the empty slot where the Terminator once was.