Best DACs under $7,000.00

Oh god…yes Peachtree.  Not sure why I was thinking Cambridge.  I was tired last night when I wrote that.  
 

i used a Clarus Crimson Coax cable for all tests out of the Chord 2Go/2Yu and was using Clarus Aqua speaker cables.  Both are well broken in. I used a Puritan Ultimate XX power cable.  I used same cables for Peachtree and NAD along with AGD and Modwright.  All ICs were Clarus Crimson.  The lone exception was the Chord Hugo 2 where I had to use Kimber Tonic ICs as Clarus terminations won’t. Fit.  
 

I did not do any tweaks or use and kind of footer on the Peachtree.  The amp sat on a rack in the shelf by itself.  I removed it and swapped NAD in.  

The GAN1 did not sound anything like this to me, but I only had 12 hours on mine. On my well broken in LS50 Meta speakers the sound was a little rolled off and not as clear as my Benchmark stack. The Benchmark stack is likely considered too neutral by a lot of people, but perfect for my ears, LA4 preamp | AHB2 monos | slightly warm Musetec 005 DAC | Audience FrontRow speaker cable | Audience AU24SE XLR and RCA | Fibre streaming.

On my much cleaner sounding RAAL SR1a earphone, via an RAAL adapter box, Audience AU24SX speaker cables, a brand new WyWire "Silver" SPDIF cable extending out the previously mentioned Fibre streaming, the GAN1 sound was amazing. The very best of 2-channel gear on these earphones which will show everything in the chain. This was better than the $30K warm system I sold that was the prior very best 2-channel with the SR1a, CODA 07x preamp | KRELL DUO 175XD amp or CODA #8 amp | Musetec 005 DAC | Audience FrontRow speaker cable | same streaming as before.

The current draw on the amp using this adapter box approach was more current usage than with my Thiel CS3.7 speakers (sold). The amp gets a workout. I know this because my old CODA #8 amp had meters and that showed the current draw between the SR1a and the Thiel CS3.7.

My 2-channel gear can only get you so far with the SR1a because of the adapter box. It can never approach the best dedicated SR1a amp. The GAN1 so far is the 2nd best sound I have on the SR1a. Hopefully it does not get bright with more break-in. Though I have never had an amp go from rolled off sounding (my opinion) to bright. I expect a bit more clarity on top and would be shocked it got beyond a neutral level.

@yyzsantabarbara fascinating that you are having a different experience.  I am curious what will happen in a week as I found the GAN1 more pleasant out of the box than after a week. Maybe another week will soften it a little.  I only have maybe 180 hours on it at this point and things don’t completely settle for 500 hours technically.  
 

@verdantaudio I know that you have done extensive testing with DACs and I have read almost everything you wrote here about it. It was very informative. I believe what you are hearing today with the GAN1.

I have done "amp rolling" with my RAAL SR1a earphones over the last 2 years. I have a very high opinion of them, and I wanted to find the best gear for them. I tried 10 2-channel amps with them, $2K - $11K range.

One thing that was a factor in my evaluations was my physical reaction via ear fatigue. I get fatigue easily with bad sound and the SR1a can bring that on with a bad pairing. The only amps that did not cause any fatigue were the KRELL 175XD, CODA #8, and Parasound A21+, I attributed that to the slight warmth of the amp, preamp, and DAC.

The GAN1 trumped those 3 amps with the SR1a, it sounded the best. Thus, I do not think of it as bright. My ears would have been screaming, especially since I was testing with hard rock/heavy metal to purposefully try and cause ear pain.

@yyzsantabarbara i trust you too.  That is what surprised me about this.  I am very interested to see how your unit burns in.