I have worked my way through a bunch of these courtesy of a wedding shower my wife and daughter had to go through.
The differences were not subtle and these DACs are very different. The track Duende in particular proved extremely difficult for many of the DACs to handle. This is going to be my new reference track for all systems.
There is an opening bass solo as each instrument is introduced. It is so difficult, I was wondering it the amp and speakers were up to the task of reproducing without distortion. Only one DAC handled it well and sounded flawless.
This was fascinating in that it is a story of trade-offs. You are generally trading immersive soundstage vs detail and if you want both, a nicer unit is essential.
The one compare i haven’t had a chance to do yet is with the Weiss 501 and the Bricasti M1 SE as the Weiss is out on loan.
Across price points, there is no comparison. The AVM and Hugo 2 were competitive between each other but were inferior compared to the Chord TT2/Rockna Wavelight/Audiobyte HydraVox/Bricasti M3 who were all inferior to the Bricastis M1 SE who was inferior to the Rockna Wavedream Signature.
I am very much looking forward to getting the M21 in to see how it performs vs the Wavedream Signature, along with the Chord Dave and Wavedream Edition.
And then ultimately how the Audiobyte HUB and Chord MScaler impact sound.
I am going to write up the beefy part of this first which is the compare of the four, $4500 - $6000 units. I will say there is no clear winner. There is going to be some pretty clear direction based on what you want in your system.
The differences were not subtle and these DACs are very different. The track Duende in particular proved extremely difficult for many of the DACs to handle. This is going to be my new reference track for all systems.
There is an opening bass solo as each instrument is introduced. It is so difficult, I was wondering it the amp and speakers were up to the task of reproducing without distortion. Only one DAC handled it well and sounded flawless.
This was fascinating in that it is a story of trade-offs. You are generally trading immersive soundstage vs detail and if you want both, a nicer unit is essential.
The one compare i haven’t had a chance to do yet is with the Weiss 501 and the Bricasti M1 SE as the Weiss is out on loan.
Across price points, there is no comparison. The AVM and Hugo 2 were competitive between each other but were inferior compared to the Chord TT2/Rockna Wavelight/Audiobyte HydraVox/Bricasti M3 who were all inferior to the Bricastis M1 SE who was inferior to the Rockna Wavedream Signature.
I am very much looking forward to getting the M21 in to see how it performs vs the Wavedream Signature, along with the Chord Dave and Wavedream Edition.
And then ultimately how the Audiobyte HUB and Chord MScaler impact sound.
I am going to write up the beefy part of this first which is the compare of the four, $4500 - $6000 units. I will say there is no clear winner. There is going to be some pretty clear direction based on what you want in your system.
