dacs that I have had in my system - a listing

@jjss49 Thanks for the clarification. It seems that the Maggies were good for determining differences between the Dacs and also transferable to other speakers.

I did not really understand what sound you were looking for to select a DAC. Many DACs you tried were of the same design.

when i started out in jan 2020, i wanted to see what streaming was about, get it working, see how good it might sound

my existing references were my analog rig and my cd players, which were/are modwright modded sony es and marantz units with dan’s 5687 tube output stage and 5ar4 tube rectifier (quite high sonic standard, in my view)

like many, i went with the bluesound node first with its nice user interface, but the onboard dac sounded lifeless, so i read and watched yt vids re ’good’ dacs under or around a grand, and made a list of candidates - so this was a semi random walk at that point, surveying the field... chord 2qute, mhdt, ayre codex, pontus, rme adi2, lil schiits and so on -- these pretty much all sounded much better than the node dac... but quite noticeably different from each other, with sonic strengths and weaknesses

going through those, i was well on the horse so to speak, curiosity intensified, so started going to more expensive ones, either well reviewed or discussed, and so up the lines for chord, denafrips, metrum, schiit etc etc to understand the progressions as well as some other ’hot’ dacs (audio mirror, musical paradise....)

by 2022 i had heard some very expensive ones and several purported giant killers (by and large NOT, for those with well assembled, resolving systems) and i was getting a good appreciation of what going to $3-4-5-6 grand units got you sonically, buildwise, feature wise

i learned that in the modern dac world, there are clearly two sonic camps (clean crisp clear vs smooth and sweet ... with some in middle ground), somewhat analogous to the age old prototypical ’solid state vs tube’ sensibilities, but interestingly, each camp could handle imaging, prat, transient resolution and micro detail quite differently (for example an mhdt orchid with a better tube in it was much better than a border patrol at micro detail and transient resolution, even though both are in the ’smooth/sweet’ camp)

by middle of last year, i had settled on my top tier, the weiss, chord stack and msb analog as keepers, and beyond that, i have just continued playing with/trying less costly newcomers that are highly touted (gustard r26, denafrips revisions, musetec, eversolo and so on) as ’high value/giant killer’ units, just to hear for myself how good they are, and how close to my top tier they come

If I may ask, and not that it was necessary nor do I know of your past setups, by chance were any high efficiency 100db horn type speakers with low watt tube amps used around the time you were testing these dacs?

@decooney i did not... long long story with my efforts over the decades trying to find a high efficiency speaker i can truly live with long term ...but despite my efforts, i continue to strike out after so so many at bats... just too much transducer distortion for my ears in some form, in each case

but hope springs eternal, i still keep my pair of wavelength cardinals and a cary 300b sei around, in case lightning strikes!! 😆🤣

One dac to mention for the $, value, and somewhat in the neutral-clarity camp is the new Schiit Bifrost 2/64, R2R chip (non-tube) with non-oversampling / MegaComboBurrito filter switch. Internally runs two Texas Instruments dac processors chips.

As mentioned prior, myself@decooney @wolf_garcia @hilde45 and maybe a few others here owning one and enjoying it. I selected the BF 2/64 dac between my upgraded MHDT Orchid and the new build of my BorderPatrol SE-I, and super glad I tried it. I still have it for now as a reference dac to rotate back to compare.

There are few folks out there on Head-Fi, SBAF, and other camps who like it more than Gungir and the venerable Yggy. The owner of Schiit replaced Yggy with it, for his personal desktop use. Also, has the new Unison USB setup in it too, if you like USB. I lot of value packed in one USA made unit.

If you like a bit more sound stage, openness, separation of instruments, appreciate a bit more detail, even in NOS filter mode, I like it better than my MHDT Orchid, no matter which tube I ran in Orchid (because I run an all-tube system).  With all solid state, I might prefer the Orchid, hard to say. To me, the new Schiit BF 2/64 is  more true to the sound.The switchable MCB filter mode gives mild bass boost and upper frequency boost in my system - for whatever reason.  While I prefer NOS mode, some with less sensitive speakers or laid back system might like MCB filter mode more.

For the price, its a real contender imo. A return policy too if you don’t like it. Worth a look too, fwiw.

@jjss49 

Thanks for the overview of your testing Odyssey. I must admit to a much shorter list, but similar conclusion.