Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Oh, you also asked about my affiliation.  I have no affiliation with anyone.  I put my money where my mouth is and purchased one.  I change equipment when it makes sense to me and I can afford to.  Folks often accuse me of being a fan boy for companies, but that's not the case at all.  I have changed all my brands more than a few times, but I don't change every couple of years like many do.  I find what works great in my system and stay with it for some years.  I may upgrade within a product line, but that's because I love the house sound and it fits my needs.

Long answer to a short question I guess.  It's just a darn good product.  I don't own my Ayre QX5 anymore, but I feel strongly that is a must audition DAC in the 6-15k market as it's darn good.  Highly detailed and still not bright in any way.  It also have a nice streamer built in (not as good as some other streamers I've heard, but darn good) and versatile as heck.  For my personal tastes, you need to step up to a Brinkmann at around 18k I think (not totally sure) to get a much better DAC. That Brinkmann isn't spoken about on this thread. I think that's in part because they aren't huge in the US yet and because their folks are probably enjoying their music and not posting on sites like this, lol.  I'm not kidding either.  Their DAC is special   VERY special.  

Thankyou ctsooner,  jriggy,  bill_k, , snopro,  @  ctsooner,  I enjoyed reading your answers,  I wasn't saying your a fanboy of anything,  how ever, I am a fan boy of a few brand's, the way you posted your original post, it seemed you had some sort of a prototype good dac with a regarded volume control, I'm always chasing that set up,  that's how I run my main system now,  has anyone listened to this laufer teknic running direct to amplifier's? 

No, others call me a fanboy, lol.  I hate that term. Hey, we are on a fun forum and will tout what we put our money on.  I also audition a ton of gear and will tout what I like or don't like. Then it's up to the reader to figure out how they hear compared to what I like or dislike or any poster/dealer/manufacturer or reviewer.  

I now own the Laufer DAC adn Memory Player server.  It's the first one 'in the wild' and we they are making constant tweeks and upgrades.  We are currently waiting on Stealth Caps to come in and are moving the DAC out of the server.  Better isolation etc...  It has a well done digital volume control as well as an analog as I will be getting a pair of mono's or separate stereo amp eventually. I wanted that in my DAC.  I also like how they listen to me and try to make what I need.  

There are other great manufacturer's out here and that's great for all of us.  Hey, Empirical Audio makes a tremendous DAC.  I loved mine and it wasn't even Steve's top of the line.  I am not doing to sell his server that he sold to me since I now have the Memory Player, but he's a genius in regards to audio.

I've heard many other digital products that are impressive.  It's a great time to go digital and many of us can no longer play vinyl for mobility reasons (having MS, I can't' keep getting up and down to change things and to keep everything as clean as it needs to be to be in top shape).  Also digital does many things better than vinyl and when you lower jitter and take away much of the problems associated with older digital, it can sing.

@david_ten , I'd highly suggest the Chord Dave or the Metrum Adagio. Conversely, I believe you have the Denafrips Terminator which is a high end dac, perhaps you could add a well regarded passive attenuator between the dac and the amp.

Hi everyone!!!!

sorry for the long hiatus. Work and family take up a lot of time and sometimes leave little room for audio play.

Laufer Teknic is amazing gear. Sam and Mark make a terrific team. Their gear is true high end and they don’t go 6 months without releasing an update or improvement that makes a notable step forward in performance. And they share each upgrade with their customers and most come without charge unless there is a hardware change needed to implement the upgrade. Mark is a software Savant and what he does works and works better then anything else I have heard.

Now, as you all know, I pride myself on that last statement being accurate. And with Antipodes and Innuos newest products I can no longer say I’ve heard it all. I am making efforts to remedy that situation so I can give you all an opinion that is both accurate and CURRENT!!

As as far as DAC’s go, I’m not a huge fan of variable output dacs direct to amps. I see the financial advantages of course. But I have never ever heard a system at any price that doesn’t sound it’s best unless there is an active preamp with gain in the circuit. Maybe the only caveat to that might be Rowland and Bricasti, where the amps and Dacs are specifically designed to work that way and the gain and impedance matching have been accounted for.

That being said, Chord does offer a nice variable out in all of their DAC’s that does as good a job as possible of compensating. Its not ideal, but it works and sounds very good.

Empirical Audio’s volume control is not a solution. It attenuates but doesn’t go down to zero. The DAC is nothing short of amazing though.

To be hoenst, nothing earth shattering has been released recently DAC wise to warrant special attention. I think the new Mola Mola DAC is worth listening to. And supposedly Chord has released a box to increase the processing power of the Chord Dave so now it goes to 11. I have a friend who is a dealer and we will listen to the improvements it makes. I was not blown away by the DAVE (sorry Chord fans). So I’m hoping the extra box fixes it’s issues.

Im trying to get in that Innuos Statement and Antipodes double box music server. I’ll update if I can make that happen.