A DAC that crushes price vs. performance ratio

Hey Al,

Truth be told, I never turn off SS amps including the XA-25, except if I'm going on a long trip.  Yes, the XA-25 comes mainly back on song after about a hour. However, to get to the pristine level of performance it can offer takes a lot more time in my experience. 

I had a pair of Threshold SA-1 mono-blocks that remained turned on for close to 20 years and the caps were still good and going strong.  I believe that my never turning off the amps the caps last longer and are less likely to dry out.

Hi almarg,
To bad you didn't wait for the new First Watt SIT-3. I'm on the waiting list. Should be getting it in October, hopefully. Nelson is only making 250 of them.  
A few reviewers think very highly of it. Stating that the tonal balance is quite tube like but, still providing detail, bass, and control like good SS provides.

Teajay, maybe ask for a review.

Hey celander,

You do say interesting things in very peculiar ways.  To address your statements:

1) I believe most people in this hobby know that people in the industry, including professional reviewers, get discounts on what they buy for their personal use.  This is not breaking news.

2) If I had to pay full price I still would have purchased the review pieces that brought my system and enjoyment of music to a higher level.  My great interest is finding killer products for reasonable amounts of money.

3) My definition of value is build quality/performance compared to price and if it out performs much more expensive pieces, it's a great bargain.

4) I do not understand your statement at all regarding "investors in boutique audio companies" The owners of these companies have nothing to do regarding the reviewing process.  For a matter of fact, the boutique companies that I have historically setup reviews with did not seek me out at all. I got wind of their products and was highly motivated to review their gear.  The small guys cannot pay for the slick advertising, the website I review for does not tie in advertising dollars as way of getting a review done at all, therefore they are excited and take the risk of a bad review to get the public to know about their product.

@Snopro

Thanks for your comment, Joe. I had considered the possibility of waiting for the SIT-3, but I decided that it wouldn’t be suitable for my purposes.

One reason being its VERY low gain (spec’d at 11.5 db), which would make it a non-starter for my system.

Another being that its power capability (spec’d at 18 watts and 30 watts for 8 ohms and 4 ohms respectively) is probably marginal (or worse) with my speakers, when listening to the many classical symphonic recordings that are in my collection that have been engineered with minimal or no dynamic compression, on labels such as Telarc, Reference Recordings, Sheffield Labs, Chesky, etc. In fact I might not have purchased the XA25 were it not for John Atkinson’s measurements which indicated a maximum power capability (presumably after leaving class A) of 80 watts and 130 watts into 8 and 4 ohms respectively. (My speakers are spec’d at 97.5 db, with a nominal impedance of 6 ohms, and are said to be close to that impedance throughout almost all of the frequency range).

Best regards,
-- Al