AudioByte Vox | Zap vs Rockna Wavelight

The Rockna is about four time the price 16k vs 4k. OCD Guy on you tube has done several videos on both and he is the importer.

The unit that is 4x the price is the Wavedream Signature.  The Wavelight is $4950 while the HydraVox/Zap combo $4500 list.  The difference is the Audiobyte is a pure FPGA DAC while the Wavelight is an R2R DAC with an FPGA front end.  

OCD Guy is not the sole importer of any of these products.  The US and Canadian distributor for Rockna is Worldwide Wholesalers in Canada.  Audiobyte is sold in the US direct from Rockna/Audiobyte in Romania.  I buy Audiobyte direct from Romania.   

I have Wavelights in-stock and am waiting on my Audiobyte stock so I can do a side-by side comparison of the two.  I am going to try each firmware option on the Audiobyte and will be writing up a detailed POV on each.  

Cool.. interested in your side by side comparison.

@verantaudio Thanks for the feedback. The idea of tuning the AudioByte via firmware sounds interesting. Just like the PS Audio DirectStream,

I had the AudioByte on my mind now for about 2 years. The Wavelight was something that people said to also consider.

I sold my AudioMirror Tubadour III SE yesterday and moved my Gustard X26 Pro to act as DAC/peamp in another room. So now I have my Benchmark DAC3B connected to a CODA 07x preamp and it sounds very good. I have rack space and fibre optical streaming already setup for a second DAC. So looking around for another DAC.

Looking forward to your comparison. It would also be interesting to know how the HUB changes the sound.