Some DACs I am Considering-Any thoughts?

@phill55 I have the same AMT3SE as you on order. Can you tell me long it took for the unit to fully break-in?

Couple A/Bs from yesterday:


Yesterday we tried some a/b comparisons between your dac Audio Mirror Tubadour and 2005 vintage dCs CD player P8i model. $14k new.
Another friend brought the PS Audio Direct Stream DAC. $5k new.
As you may know they both are software based DACs.
Although volume matching was not perfect I found I preferred yours to the PS Audio model.The owner of the PS model felt his had some strengths over the AM. The openness and presenceof the AM was in my mind the big difference.
The dCs comparison was a bit harder to judge. The owner liked his dCs better. I found it a very closecomparison and could not make a definite judgement. With his we were able to volume match more closely.
Our Arizona Audio/Video Club has a Van Alstine Comparator unit which I may use next time if another DAC comparison is to be done.

my input to several recent posts below:

a) yes frank van alstine's abx comparator is quite a truth teller... excellent piece that serves its purpose spot on... like all of what frank makes

b) in my listening tests in my own system, the audio mirror, mhdt and even denafrips dacs sounded more natural, open and dimensional than the border patrol (not that the bp is not good, the others were somewhat better to my ears)

c) point b above being said, the differences are quite subtle and only upon direct comparison can one discern and be confident about the difference - that is another benefit of the ava abx unit - you can a/b knowing what's what, then you also a/b without knowing test yourself if you can reliably and consistent hear what you think you hear among two items

regarding AM Tubadour break-in. 30 days to start really smoothing out and three months for those big duelund caps to become liquid sounding. an exercise in patience. 

Retired electrical engineers and music lovers designed and built the Taiwanese COS Engineering group of DACs, the H1, D1 and D2v.   I have heard the H1 and own the D2v ($5000 list price),  This is a big step up from my trusty, tubed EAR Acute CD player.  It has a 1 second buffer delay that works (compared to the non-delay switch useful for video playback syncing).  The H1 ($2500 list price) has dual headphone jacks.  It is a very open sound with deep, tight bass.  My D2v is a warmer sound while ultra detailed.   I have not heard the other DACs mentioned.  I have heard very expensive Meridian and Meitner, ARC and some other DACs and prefer the COS at the price.  Also, COS Dacs don't respond to footers, they are very well designed and constructed boxes.  I tried various Stillpoints and SR Mig SXs as well as lesser footers (soft, hard, etc).