Any opinions on the AMR Digital Processor 777 Dac?

I see that Stereophile gave this DAC a Class A rating in this month's Recommended Components. Honestly, I think it should have been A+. Maybe I am missing something but the Empirical Off-Ramp and Grace m903 are A+?? Also, the Weiss 202 & Ayre QB-9? All these are probably good but if they are A+, so is the AMR DP-777...just my opinion. My DP-777 now has 700 hours and I am still running direct to the amps.......simply outstanding.

Jeffga...my guess is Art Dudley who reviewed it and liked it a lot argued for A+ rating but John Atkinson who measured it (and he was unimpressed with its measured performance) argued for a lower rating and they compromised and came out with a Class A rating.

Jeffga, I can tell you my battery powered Off-ramp 4 still sounds better than AMR's own USB input.

Cmalak: In the last paragraph of JA's comments he mentions sending a 24-bit/44.1kHz signal to the DP-777, and since 'Auto Select' was enabled it saw the 44.1 sampling rate and selected the 16-bit Classic DAC, this is why it downsampled (truncated) the 24-bit signal to 16-bit. He could have either turned off auto or manually selected the HD DAC.

There are not many 24/44.1 music files out there, so one might wonder why he chose such a signal to test. Surely 88.2 or higher would have made more sense.

I read JA's review a while back... Didn't he measure a true hi-rez signal via the hi-rez DAC, and find that the DAC only resolved to 16 bits??
If so, that makes the AMR a low-rez DAC at best, would it not?

I cannot comment on USB since I use a traditional transport (Theta Compli) -- with a RCA ASI digital cable. In my rig, it is fabulous. Most of my CD's are standard resolution. I can tell you that they have never sounded better. Alison Krauss is in the room. Soundstage & imaging freaky good. I have heard (owned) DACs with more detail but lacked the emotion and "magic" of the 777. I am sure there are better out there but I have not heard one. And at $5K this is a steal (for my setup). In addition, all other DACs I have owned with volume controls either thinned out the sound (sterile) or lacked punch (or not enough volume). Thus I can free up thousands due to eliminating a separate preamp. I have no ties to AMR although Darren (Importer) is an exceptional representative. I will repeat the "break-in" mantra...it is night /day once there are 500 hours on it (compared w/ brand new).