PS Audio uber dac


While browsing the PS Audio forums.. talk is.. PS A will be coming out with a $20,000.00 dac in the near future. I think Ted Smith is the design guru. Seems like a lot of scratch for a product from a known ’value for money’ oriented company. Wish them luck...lots of stiff competition in that price range.
aolmrd1241
I’ll put it this way ,price of said component has no bearing on performance.
 This notion of “you get what you pay for” really doesn’t apply in this hobby .
If the three were equally priced it was really a matter of taste and the Yggdrasil analog 2 won , sure there were other factors involved however they were minor . 
For now I’m satisfied however there is one dac I would like to check out in the near future and that is the Rockna Wavedream .



Well, Andreas Koch's MPD-8 has already gotten one rave review. Hopefully, Playback Designs will market the Dream Series just a little bit. There won't be much hype, but who will bet against the result?
I haven’t tried the Yggdrasil (I do hate having to type that) but am considering getting one in to try on a trial basis. Of course there IS the "restocking fee" they charge so they don’t make it easy the way PS Audio does and I do like the Directstream. I ended up buying the Directstream Jr because I hate touchscreens so I also know there are some who believe Jr is a stepdown from Sr and others who believe any perceived difference is confirmation bias but I trust that people hear what they hear period. STILL, really digging the directstream at the moment and you have to remember with this gear that NO ONE should pay retail for PS stuff...I paid 62% of retail for a new unit from an authorized dealer so just remember that when you’re talking about the price of that gear.  ALSO been thinking about trying the Metrum Acoustics DACS since I have a distributor in my home city.  Any thoughts about Metrum Acoustics?
@pwhinson ,

 from all what I've read the Metrum Pavane is fantastic. People describe it as vinyl sound. Seemingly it has all, micro dynamics, separation of instruments, soundstage, tone and timbre spot on. Basically what one would expect from a great NOS implementation.  I dream DAC, at least for me. 

However, the sound does not come cheap. It's pretty expensive at retail price, which is natural given that Metrum  have their own chips.  You only get the DAC, or the preamp  in the Adaggio/Jade versions which implement an amazing volume control manipulating the voltage through through the chips without the shortcomings of usual volume implementation in DACs. There is not headphone output, no DSD files, and of course the best inputs are I2S (only works with their Amber which seemingly is great but only works as a Roon endpoint) followed by AES, Spdif an finally USB. 

I would like to know how Pavane compare with Jade. I've not seen any serious comparison and trustable (= non commercial) in that regard. The Jade is half the price with half of R2R ladders and less sophisticated AC/DC circuitry than the Pavane. Is it worth the price difference?. They the Onyx version, which is the Jade with volume control. 

Personally, I'm watching for some good deal in a used/demo model.