I find the Gold Note IS-1000 to significantly outperform the Devialet 220 and the Ayre EX-8 in terms of soundstage scale, naturalness of timbre, and overall musicality (the Devialet being unnaturally forced in terms of hardness of attack and the Ayre being a little lightweight) by comparison.
Have not used the others but have heard the Hegel h190 in another system and rate all of the units mentioned in this post as a step above it but it’s hard to be definite given it wasn’t in my system.
Have not used the others but have heard the Hegel h190 in another system and rate all of the units mentioned in this post as a step above it but it’s hard to be definite given it wasn’t in my system.