Wyred DACS

I am especially sensitive and irritated by upper mid/lower treb sibilance and glare. When I hear that, regardless of its various phenomena, the enjoyment of music collapses into annoyance and avoidance.

I couldn't agree more. Glare and sibilance are show stoppers.

My question, beyond the Wyred, the Tranquility,and the Ayre, what are others under 3k US$ that members would recommend for consideration?

Bel Canto DAC3 and DAC3.5 are excellent sounding. I'm sure there are others, but I haven't heard them.

If you are extremely sensitive to sibilance and glare then I believe the WFS will not be your preference. This is not to slight the DAC - it is very hard to make a DAC that will synergige in everyones system to their taste. The tranquility will be a better choice IMHO for you. It was instantly competitive with a very expensive reference DAC that was describes this way:
'But let me say the things a beast ! I’ve spent time with a full DCS stack and I can tell you the Connor24 smacks it down simple as that. The 24 is a DCS stack with a velvet glove.'

The Tranquility really is a hard nut to crack. The reason you may prefer the WFS is if you prefer the following type of presentation as described by one person at the shootout:
'An amazing amount of detail, excellent tonal consistency and powerful bass. But it sounded like you were playing a CD and there were electronic artifacts in the form of a mid treble glare that intruded. Grey background. Microdynamically restricted. However its combination of consistent tonality and detail was impressive in a hifi sense and I can actually believe that some listeners might place this as their favourite.'

Thanks
Bill

Cutterfilm wrote:

I'm going straight from my DAC-2 to my Musical Fidelity A3.2cr amp and it's sounding a little harsh in the upper register.

Do you notice this harshness more when using lots of attenuation, or is it present equally throughout the DAC2's entire attenuation range?
Can you discern any (other) changes in sound quality as attenuation increases?
I may be getting this DAC some day and would like to know more about the attenuator's audible characteristics. Thanks.

Yea it makes sense. The reason I up-sampled everything to 192/24 is I thought it reduced the sibilance control issue better. But what I found was the mac operating system was better, and with further experimenting I found Play with no up-sampling sounded better again - clearer and more neutral to my ears. However interestingly today when we checked out Play on the Tranquility one of the guys thought the bass was a problem. My advice is to suck it and see.

Thanks
Bill

I am at a loss to understand why Bhobba suffers from glare and sibilance from W4S. From my experience, I could not attribute that to the DAC itself but must conclude its source is upstream in Bhobba's system or in his cables. I have been using the W4S DAC2 for a few months now, probably have about 50 - 75 hrs on it, and if anything I find it on the laid back side of the spectrum (not unpleasantly so , although this may change with greater use.

My source is a CEC TL-1X through a Stealth Sextet AES/EBU digicable to DAC set at fixed output.

Overall, I think it is an exceptional DAC regardless of price and facilities. When those are taken into account it is the proverbial steal. And I went from a Dodson 218, no slouch itself though perhaps a bit dated at this point.

Neal