Fsmith wrote:
"Not sure it is quite there yet in the uber competitive lower upper class of to name just a few Lampi, Berkeley, Meitner, Bricasti, MSB, dCS and it looks as if the DirectStream has poked its heard into there as well into this prestigious group."
It is there. It has beaten all of these in reviews and shootouts.
Read these:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ddgtl&1398132150&&&/Absolute-top-tier-DAC-for-standard-res-R
http://dagogo.com/empirical-audio-overdrive-se-usb-dacpredac-review
http://www.audiostream.com/content/empirical-audio-overdrive-se-usb-dacpre
"Correct me if I am wrong but I would assume any improvement I make in the transport area will provide benefits to any / all of the above mentioned DACS. With this group mentioned above do you really think their USB implementation is not good enough and really needs an off ramp?"
Yes and Yes.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio
"Not sure it is quite there yet in the uber competitive lower upper class of to name just a few Lampi, Berkeley, Meitner, Bricasti, MSB, dCS and it looks as if the DirectStream has poked its heard into there as well into this prestigious group."
It is there. It has beaten all of these in reviews and shootouts.
Read these:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ddgtl&1398132150&&&/Absolute-top-tier-DAC-for-standard-res-R
http://dagogo.com/empirical-audio-overdrive-se-usb-dacpredac-review
http://www.audiostream.com/content/empirical-audio-overdrive-se-usb-dacpre
"Correct me if I am wrong but I would assume any improvement I make in the transport area will provide benefits to any / all of the above mentioned DACS. With this group mentioned above do you really think their USB implementation is not good enough and really needs an off ramp?"
Yes and Yes.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio