Higher End DACs

No doubt the T&A is a wonderful jack of all trades and priced accordingly. We were chosen to sell the Aqua line  as well. Our reasoning was price point and  upgrade ability. For Preamp service we carry Lamm and Audio Hungary. We stream Radio through iPeng.
Different choices for different budgets and systems.

charlesrollo audio consulting

No Charles it is not a matter of being a jack of all trades, the T+A offers a level of sound quality that is ahead of the Aqua and it should be considering the difference in price.

Also if you consider the extra cost of a set of interconnects and a power cord not to mention the space of a great analog preamp, the concept of an intergrated state of the art preamplifier along with the dac makes a very tempting all in one package.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ T+A, Aqua, and Innous dealers

ufguy73...just curious but when you started this thread were you looking for 35k type products?
for a ‘retail’ price of $18000 you could put an aurender acs10 with a bartok dac and have a digital front end that burns and streams with great operating software. as a side benefit both units exude quality and would be a joy to use. another important aspect is that the two units have outstanding resale value but i don’t think you’d be selling them anytime soon. you can squeeze perhaps another 5-10% in sq by spending a lot more but only if you have an uber overall system. i also feel that very good digital is no longer hard to find and 13-15k(dcs) isn’t necessary for 95% of audiophiles. at $4500, unless it’s gone up, the acs10 is a true high end bargain. IMO

i left out dacs. there are many out there that i don’t know about but when i had a mytek manhattan 2 i thought it superior to the bricasti m1 which i also owned. the mytek was by no means a budget product in terms of performance and build quality. there are many other new and used dacs available for under10k. the law of diminishing returns certainly appears in digital. 

correction: the acs 10 starts at $5600