DACs and bass response?

Congratulations on fixing your Aqua La Voce! Wonderful that you were finally able to get it to work properly. A pity Aqua couldn’t get their jitter rejection circuits to work as claimed but in truth this seems to be a common problem with many DACs. PLL technology is often inadequate in many DACs and incoming jitter is a horrendous problem.

Shadorne: Thanks! This was my first standalone DAC, so I had no previous experience to rely upon-- only what I read online or heard for myself. I frankly didn't know what such a component might contribute to my system.

There are certainly more DACs that I could've demo'd, but as it was, I ended up spending about $500 to ship 3 DACs back and forth, which is not an inconsequential sum in my case. 

It helped that the two others I tried out were, in my system, quite extreme in their presentation; one starkly analytical and the other overly weighty  and congested.  To be fair, it's possible that I could've discovered how to make either of them sound good, but due to their pricing, I couldn't have afforded to do much in that regard. La Voce's price ($3000) gave me the leeway to afford the Empirical gear, which made all the difference. 

How I ended up choosing to demo La Voce after the Metrum and COS DACs, is too convoluted a path for me to remember, let alone describe, but I'm sure glad I did!

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions. 

PS: I can report that the "dark" tonality I noticed in the system was solely due to the cheap Best Buy cable linking transport and re-clocker. As soon as I replaced it with a Blue Jeans coax, a veil lifted and the music immediately became noticeably cleaner and punchier.  

Krell DAC in my Vanguard Digital is phenomenal in all regards.  It comes with a superb preamp and amp as well. :)