After auditioning and comparing my incredible Ayre Acoustics QX-5 Twenty Streaming DAC to several other more expensive reference DACs (and some less expensive), I opted for the Ayre, and I have been extremely happy with it every since. I felt that any variations in sound quality between the Ayre DAC compared to, and, in some cases, those DACs costing significantly more, just didn’t justify the increase in price. After 3 years with the Ayre Acoustics QX-5 Twenty Streaming DAC, I’m still in love. Happy listening.
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I have not heard expensive dacs in my system but my modded PS Audio DSD sounds good for a $3500 dac. I experienced my dac improvement with added mods and now fully upgraded with APS nickel transformers, VOCM mod and analog power supply board powered by a Keces P3 with a Neotech 20ga silver dc cable connecting Keces power supply to power supply board in dac is the best sounding dac in my system so far. All that said I have not tried a lot of different dacs in my system.
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The timbre, impulse and transient information coming out of my Ayre Acoustics QX-5 Twenty ($15,000) with L5xe is fantastic. Horns, voices or anything else in the midrange sounds rich, relaxed and has information around the notes normally missed in dacs such as the Bartok Apex ($20,950) which I sold. The bass with QX-5 is incredible as it has texture, extension and detail galore without sounding bubbly, bloated, unnatural or lacking. The QX-5 has made me a better listener because now I know what I was missing. Compared to the competition, the QX-5 should cost 2-3x as much. Happy listening!
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The best DAC I have heard is the MSB Select. I have not heard the Nagra, Wadax or Playback designs. I have heard all the others mentioned in this thread and it is not even close to my ears.
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Both MSB and DCS frequently introduce new models at such a rapid pace that it leads to a depreciation of their second-hand markets. This constant influx of new releases creates a perpetual cycle where buyers feel compelled to constantly upgrade, never quite reaching satisfaction. However, the allure of owning prestigious equipment remains a significant driving force behind their purchases.
DCS, known for being ahead of its time in the past, leaned heavily towards analytical precision at the expense of musicality. This single-minded focus on transparency inadvertently led to a loss of emotional depth in the sound, resulting in a somewhat hollow and overly sharp listening experience.
In an attempt to retain customers who were seeking more musicality, DCS launched the APEX upgrade. Presently, they are developing a new DAC to compete with MSB's upcoming Cascade and their higher-priced DAC offerings. Despite their impressive technological advancements, both companies struggle to maintain long-term user satisfaction beyond the initial excitement of ownership.
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My Weiss Helios is the best that I've heard. Unrivaled detail retrieval but not artificial sounding. It's completely musical and a soundstage that is deeper and laser etched.
I know it's good because I hear new things on familiar recording and I don't want to turn my system off even when it's way past bed time.
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My analog chain is top level but the digital is mid level only. In my system, the best sounding DAC so far is the Teac NT-505. No surprise: it sounds better than my little Topping e30ii dac (at almost 10x the price). What IS a surprise, is that both DACs sound much better playing pure DSD with the volume disabled, compared to PCM with volume enabled.
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After many years of reliable service, my AMR CD-77 CDP, with its anachronistic TDA 1541A DAC, finally stopped outputting sound. Not sure what the issue is, but repairs for it would be impractical. Thus, I decided to pick up another old-school DAC, a Levinson 360S with its 1704K DAC chip. I love the spaciousness, airy sound of these DACs from the early 2000s, and don't see myself ever getting any new upsampling or DSD DACs.
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Follow up. I purchased a Bricasti M21 (with its optional internal media renderer), and it is now resident in my audio system. Initially, I found that while the playback was more clear, the soundstage wider and deeper, imaging was more precise, an overriding brightness spoiled everything else. Fortunately, this brightness issue was resolved by changing my Ethernet cable between my switch and the M21 to a Shunyata Sigma V2 and my interconnect cable fro the M21 to my preamp to a DH Labs Air Matrix Cryo. I can now say that listening to digitally sourced music on my syste is marvelous.
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Owned: Technics SU-R1 streaming dac and my TAD sacd player, which can also be used as a standalone dac.
Heard: Aavik SD-880 streaming dac ....I am convinced that this is the best sounding dac on earth! If there is no trickledown unit in a couple of years, it would suck because this unit costs 70k at the moment (could cause divorce).
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I added the Sean Jacobs DC4/ARC6 external LPS to my DAVE stream (M SCALER/OPTO DX Galvanic isolator). The LPS transformed what I thought was already a great DAC to something extraordinary. My previous DAC was an OPPO SONICA tube modded by Modwright. Not to be compared with even an un-modded DAVE.
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