This was my dilemma back then. I have heard both the pontus and terminator but not the Kinki dac. But as good as the denafrips stuff were, the signature was a bit too strong and I wanted something slightly more neutral but still musical. That’s when Alvin suggested the Kinki dac, and I ended up with the kinki dac + amp (both bought blind as there weren’t that many users then, and the 6moons review wasn’t even complete yet).
I did not have a chance to compare the mytek brooklyn with the Kinki Dac, but all I can tell you is that I know a guy with the mytek, and he ended up with a Terminator, and subsequently a Chord Dave. I heard the Terminator on multiple occasions, but eventually still went for the Kinki dac - open to your interpretation!
Fast forward 1.5 years - the Kinki dac and amp have still been with me and I have no intention of changing them any time soon.
It’s not all smooth sailing with the kinki dac though. Allow me to share some ’issues’ I faced with the kinki dac, just throwing info out for anyone out there still considering.
1. The XLR output on the Kinki dac does not marry well with the Kinki amp, especially if you have sensitive speakers (I’m using the spatial m4tm). The dac is of a balanced design, but the amp is a single ended one. Using the XLR input caused my speakers to ’POP’ loudly whenever I increase or decrease the volume. The output voltage was measured to be on the high side, and since the amp had no filter in the XLR stage, prolonged usage using this connection into a sensitive speaker might kill your tweeter. No evidence, but it certainly sounded like it. I have since switched to using RCA connections, but the ’pop’ sound is still noticeable sometimes (a lot softer but still there).
2. The input display of my dac is quite wonky. The sampling rate sometimes jumps around and I have no idea why it’s doing that. A redbook 44.1 file displays at 88.2, and 192 displays at 384. At first, I thought it was upsampling my files but then it started changing on the fly, while the songs were playing (jumping up, then down, then up). No audible difference can be heard though, and I believe there’s some issues with the board connection. Still does that till this day. Sometimes it just stays as the doubled sample rate all the way, but sometimes it switches back and forth. Strangely, the sampling rate always displays correctly on DSD playback, or if the file is 48 or 96khz.
3. Not sure about the newer gen ones, but you can’t turn off the display. I know the newer amps come with the function to turn the display off totally, which is great, but I’m not sure if you can do it with the dac. It’s not super bright, but sometimes I do wish I can listen totally in the dark. Then again, my sot txusb still has a glow when it’s on and the network switch flashes behind my dac, so I guess this isn’t really an issue, but just throwing it out there as info.
4. If you roll fuses, you’d be sad to hear that when you pop open the fuse holder at the iec, there are not 1, but 2 fuses :( Originally thought 1 was a spare, so I tried removing 1 to determine which was the spare (so I could roll). Turns out I needed both the fuses to be in to turn it on. Twice the cost :/
At the end of the day, they still sound great and I did not regret purchasing the Kinki combo. Between the dac and amp though, if one had to go, the dac will probably be the one because despite being good, it performs similarly (sonically) to what I’d expect from other dacs in this price bracket (or slightly higher). It's not as value for money as the amp is.
