Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Guido. I openly admit I would get better results with one of Steve's OffRamp USB to spdif converters. If I had an unlimited budget, I would have tried that.

But your statement needs to be reiterated. If you are planing on using a transport, especially transformer coupled, then the Aeris will sound better then my evaluation described. How much better, and what the differences would be I do not know. That is for me to not know and you to find out. ;)

PS - my Core Audio Mac Mini has a solid state hard drive. No spinning disks.

Synchro-Mesh and Of-Ramp have 30-day money back, less shipping. You just waited too long.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Hi Matt, very nice that your MacMini already on SSD. Friend of mine made comparison in last couple of days between hard drive (do not remember brand) and Samsung 840 EVO 1TB SSD... He asserted that the SSD delivered harmonically denser images... I believe he may be using a MacMini re-hosted to Windows 7 into a Teac UD-501 DAC via a Prana USB cable.

Here are some additional twists for the permanently obsessive.... Does the SSD technology standard matter? 2.5 inch, vs MSATA, vs M.2... What about the SSD controller? What about the SSD brand, series, model? All things that potentially we can obsess about.

Admittedly, I am still a dinosaur... I am feeding Aeris SPDIF through the Esoteric X-01 coax output.... I do not believe X-01 SPDIF to be transformer-coupled. I will probably let music server technology steep for a bit yet before I take the plunge... Amongst other things, I need to make sure that the UIs to control the servers are fully interoperable with my non-visual access technology.

G.

Back and forth over this Empirical Audio product ( Ozzy vs S. Nugent) doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy... This is a perfect example of why manufacturers probably should stay off public forums...