TLDR;
Session 1)
First Place = Chord Qutest
Second Place (tie) = Holo Audio Spring DAC2 and NuPrime Evolution DAC
Session 2)
First Place = Schiit Yggdrasil
Second Place = iFi Audio Pro iDSD
Third Place = Benchmark DAC3
Session 3)
First Place = Black Ice Audio Glass FX DSD
Second Place = LKS MH-DA004
Third Place = PS Audio Direcstream DAC
Session 4) Finals:
First Place = Black Ice Audio Glass FX DSD
Second Place = Chord Qutest
Third Place = Schiit Yggdrasil
The Format:
All dacs were fed the same source simultaneously via optical input from an optical splitter fed from the cd player. A professional recording engineer and myself spent the day before setting up and level matching all the dacs. For each listening session we played five test tracks from all different genres of music using high quality recordings. We cycled through the dacs using the various preamp inputs for a seamless transition during each test track with each dac playing for 10-30 seconds at a time with several transitions within each track.
Listeners knew which dacs were present in each bracket but not which dac was playing at a given time other than if it was dac A, B, or C. Votes were tallied at the end of each session and only afterward were the dacs unveiled as belonging to one of the given inputs (A, B,or C). Not even I, who set up the dacs knew which one was which until the unveiling. Participants then discussed why they liked a given dac and we discussed the dacs technology and feature set.
The event took place in a room custom built to showcase home theater design and thus was very well treated. The system consisted of:
- Amp = SAE 2HP
- Preamp = Chord CPA-5000
- Interconnects DACs to Pre = Audioquest Mackenzie
- Interconnects Pre to Power = Audioquest Water
- Optical Cables = Audioquest Cinnamon
- CDP as transport only = Musical Fidelity M3SCD
- Speakers = pair of Focal Utopia Maestro Evos
- Speaker cables = Audio Quest William Tell Silver Zero with William Tell Bass in a Bi-wire configuration.