How about the Emotiva XDA-2?

Tonyangel: I used a Conrad Johnson PV3 with the emotiva dac and it sounded wonderful. I just set the volume to a good level on the CJ pre, and then used the Emotiva remote for "fine-tuning" the volume settings depending on digital source. I think you should go the tube pre route like you mentioned.

has anyone compared the xda1 to the xda2 --dac to dac.

i heard the xda1 and it lacked body, somewhat on the lean side.

Mik971, I would imagine that your setup would work nicely. According to the guys at Emotiva, keeping the XDA-1's volume at a minimum of 60 should get you very good sound quality.

Mrtennis, what did you compare the XDA-1 to, in your system? I think that the XDA-1 is pretty good. Yes, there could be more body. There could be more detail. There could be more air, but it handles the mids nicely and has a good bottom end. I didn't find that it lacks body at all.

Still, if you feel that the XDA-1 lacks body, you may not like the XDA-2 at all. Based on what I've read, the XDA-2 has a bit more detail and more air, but at the expense of sounding a bit leaner and lacking a bit on the bottom as compared to the XDA-1.

Yup, how about it?

i heard the xda-1 compared to the ayre (don't remember the model number) and a theta.

i suspect that if i had issues with emotiva's original dac the successor wwould not be my cup of tea either.