Last night I had the opportunity to hear and compare the Tranquility DAC to a highly accoladed CD player, the AMR. This was in a $100k plus system. The Tranquility and the AMR were also compared to master tapes on a special $6k reel to reel deck as our ultimate reference. Of course, the reel to reel was everything they say it is and even more. The Tranquility had very good sustain and decay and was analog like and it was similar to the reel to reel in terms of fluidity, voicing and detail, but it was obvious which was better, the reel to reel but not by a huge margin. We used Nils Lofgren as one of our music references and his acoustic guitar was clearly defined on the Tranquility where on the AMR, it was fatter sounding and less defined. The Tranquility did have more fluidity in the midrange than the AMR too. Lastly, the noise floor was a lot lower and on the Tranquility. All this being being said I'm ordering one after the holidays.