Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Grannyring,
You're expressing much admiration for Steve's Empirical Audio products. Are there any regrets now that you've moved on to your Aesthetix Romulus or am I misreading your comments? Lampy with Off Ramp vs Romulus CD player.
Charles,

I like my Romulus player more than the Lampi/Offramp combo. It is an amazing player that is so natural and full bodied in presentation. Very few know about it, but it draws me into the music more and is just more musical to me. Aphile terms don't explain it, just an ease that invites.

Remember, I don't have a computer front end anymore. If I did, then an Offramp and Dynamo power supply in front of the Romulus would be a must. The combo would be stellar I am sure. I just don't want to deal with the rigors of computer based audio at this time in my life. Downloads, ripping, back-up, computer details etc...

Right now my music collection is more enjoyable with the Romulus as a one box solution.

Good point Charles1dad, LOL!, however, I have followed this thread from the beginning, Matt's tast in sound is alot like my own, He has got my interest jumping about the ODSE!

DS will be interesting. A reviewer found equally excellent results from all digital inputs where with PWD MKII, bridge was the best. So with DS, maybe don't need OffRamp for best results?

From the review:

www.audiophilia.com/wp/?p=13620

/**********************************/

Because I was perplexed by my observations that the DS (unlike the PWD) was insensitive to USB versus ethernet (for sound quality), I asked him about such things.

Smith: ‘I’ve tried to make the DirectStream as input agnostic as I can: the FPGA knows no difference between the HDMI socket I2S inputs, USB or the Bridge (all are I2S to the FPGA). Any differences that are left are things like ground loops and radiation from high speed signals that might interfere with the rest of an audio system.

/**********************************/

If I was in the market for a new DAC, I would investigating something like Bryston BDP-2 to stream the data. It buffers data before play so SQ will be same from all storage device types, don't need a computer ...

Matt.. If you tap the little "gear" symbol in the top left corner of the front panel display it will show you the firmware version. There's currently two versions 6115 and 5407 the display will say fpga and either 61 or 54, 6115 is the newer one, but some like the older 5407 better ..