I own the Antipodes DX3. Before that I owned a DX for a bit. The DX3 sounds much different than the DX IMO. A CD ripped into the DX sounded very close to the same as a CD loaded into a transport and played through a DAC. The DX had a bit "quieter" background from which the music sprang from. A bit more clarity than the transport/DAC combo. (The transport used was a Modwright Oppo 105.) But the DX3 produces a dead quiet background from which the music springs. Unsurprisingly this lower noise floor allows more detail to be heard from the CDs when compared to either the DX or the transport/DAC combo. When a CD is ripped with the DX3, you can still play music but the ripper introduces a humming noise that is annoying if you are critically listening (not real loud but definitely present). Also, the DX had a BNC out as well as a USB out. My DAC generally sounds best (to me) through the SPDIF (that's not unusual though not universal). The DX3 has done away with the BNC out--it is now strictly a USB server. It sounds really good (to me) through USB. Antipodes swears that its USB out was always preferable to its BNC out anyway so they went all in with USB. My solution to having a DX3 that is USB only and a DAC with a great sounding SPDIF/BNC path was to buy a used Berkeley Alpha USB converter and put it in-between the DX3 and my DAC. Magic! You now couldn't pry my DX3 away from me. I highly recommend the product provided you have a USB DAC or you are open to using a USB converter. Antipodes customer service is top notch. I'm not crazy about their dealer network though. It is true they seemed to have a problem figuring out how to configure the DX, with the DX3 coming quickly after introducing the DX2, which came out not long after the DX. I think it had to do with Antipodes trying to keep up with the higher res craze and also doing both USB and SPDIF really well--but, not succeeding sufficiently to grab marketshare from Aurender. I tested the DX USB path out versus the SPDIF path out and it was clear the USB path sounded much better generally even with my BNC preference DAC. I could be wrong but based on what I hear they now have a winner with the DX3--they just need to convince our crowd that they are done with the revisions and have a product that is as good or better than the Aurender N10.
