I have three digital sources


I have a 4 year old Audio Note dac 2.1. I used to think it was a pretty solid piece of gear. Problem was when I bought a Cambridge Audio dacmagic to mostly stream mlb baseball games from my pc. Trouble started brewing when I hooked the dac magic to my Accustic Arts transport and it was every bit as solid a performer or even better than the Audio Note dac.

Then indignities on top of indignity I bought an Oppo 83se as a blueray player and to play sacd, and it clearly is in a different league (as in better) than my Audio Note dac and dacmagic on anything it plays. I run two systems - one computer based and one with the oppo as source. The Audio Note is the odd piece out but have been thinking should I upgrade to 3.1 (I run Audio Note HE speakers that I love in my main system), should I sell up and think about a newer technology dac that will mate with my transport or computer better, or even wondering if I just need to roll some new tubes into the 2.1 (I still have all original tubes). Just looking for a little discussion about where to take my digital sources.
ladavid
W4S DAC2 will accommodate all your sources and perform admirably. I strongly suspect you will consider it a major strive forward in audio quality and versatility.

Neal
I also have an Oppo player and an AN DAC and am completely amazed you find the Oppo superior.
thanks for the responses.

Paul - yours is most interesting to me. Actually did a comparison tonight using both Macbook with M2tech hiface and Accustic Arts as transports and it wasn't subtle that the Oppo se was better. So question is what is wrong with my Audio Note dac if it is different in yours system. Maybe tubes, maybe my ears, not cables as used the same to compare - a headscratcher that I need to figure out.
My first question is what kind of music you are listening to. Please tell me, and I'll respond with my thoughts.
thanks Paul - very eclectic music tastes - Classical - been reading book Cello Suites so have been listening to a couple versions of this lately, some folk - lots of Greg Brown of late, jazz - 50's Monk to Jason Moran, and yes some hard rock - been enjoying the new Black Mountain of late. All of it sounds pretty average on my Audio Note dac. As noted above some is cd and some is from hard drive (some even itunes downloads).