AKM makes the best DACs

It might be important to remember that audio, high end audio... is not concerned with the 95-97% of the signal and associated qualities, that EVERYONE can obtain with their $1 for a dac chip or $$200 for a dac chip.

Nobody cares about the +95%. it’s meaningless, in this context.

The only thing the high end audio endeavor is concerned about, is those last few percentage points.

This is the sublime part, the part the makes our juices flow. The difference between $1 bottle sherry and $300 a bottle scotch. It’s all in these few percentage points. Proximity to the sun. Icarian.

So we end up in these little almost circular-like arguments where we talk past one another.

To figure this out soonest and get there... and get to the enjoying of a proximity to a perfection we can’t really ever reach. Time. Time in life. Time spent in good spaces.

Time As A Reward

To simply say what others have said differently, your statement is tantamount to stating "The GE 9X jet engine makes the best jet plane". I try my best to resist the "what I have is best" tendency so often demonstrated on this Board and all audio boards but be that as it may, I will put my SW1X DAC IIIB up against any DAC in existence. It uses a very "outdated" Philips 1541 chipset. But the secret is in the sauce;

SW1X Audio Design™ DAC III Balanced Features:

• Pure & Elegant NOS (Non oversampling – zero digital domain filtering) Design
• Balanced (& Single Ended) Signal Output Transformer de-coupled Valve Output Stage Topology
• EL84 Power Output Tubes, Zero NFB, Class A, Valve Output Stage
• Passive I/V conversion via a specially selected resistor with the shortest signal path directly connected to the tube grid
• Dynamic Element Matching (DEM) of the TDA1541 powered by an asynchronous E180F Valve Clock powered by EAA91 Valve Rectified & Choke Filtered Power Supply
• Discrete Transistor, Shunt Voltage Regulated Low Voltage Power Supplies
• 5U4GYB/5R4GYB Directly Heated Valve rectified CLC (choke filtered) B+ Power Supply
• Digital Input supports up to 24Bit/96kHz S/PDIF Signal Input

• Specially Selected and Harmonically Matched Component & Material Quality
• SW1X Audio Design™ Copper wound Super HiB DC core Signal Output Transformers
• M6 grain orient EI core Mains Transformers & Chokes (HiB double C-core available as an option)
• Circuit is wired with Specially Selected copper conductors of various geometry (single strand or Litz)
• AN Copper Foil in Oil interstage signal de-coupling Capacitors
• Black Gate de-coupling Capacitors for TDA1541 DAC
• AB 2W non-magnetic Carbon film Resistors in selected places

Tube Compliment:  2 x EL84, 1 x 6N6P, 1 x 5U5GYB/5R4GYB, 1 x E180F, 1 x EAA91

I own the gustard X26pro 2x ES9038.

Soundnews tested it, the best dac under 2000$, as good as its dac reference Matrix element X which costs more than 3000$.

I find it so smooth as my Metrum amethyst, but the gustard is more detailed, more faster, more structured soundstage, and especially the instruments are more realistic !

No digital brightness !

R2R, FPGA  then it comes down to te line codes and how the dac works with diffrent Algorithms.

Andreas Koch of Playback Design lead the team at Sony for DSD

This thread doesn’t make much sense to me: clocking, cables and the DAC’s analogue section are WAY MORE determinant of a dac’s sound than the chips used. The whole debate about R2R, Delta Sigma, FPGA is in my mind and experience equally blown out of proportion