Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Matt, At this point, I wonder If you will ever get a signature Pandora or Romulas player here in this shoot out, I would call the Asthetixs company themselfs and by pass the store, I have had to do that before, they may be tring to fill a big order for the store, that will be a slow process, I believe if you explained to the designer of the asthetixs about your thread here, you likly would get one promply, It would be like dealing with Steve Nugent, cheers.

Bill_k, as I said I have compared DOP with native DSD, and the native is better.

Tbg, please understand that DoP and DSD are both native/pure DSD.

Sabre chip, the DSD goes through an entirely different part of the chip. I did listen to DOP for a long time and enjoyed it but moving the filters out well beyond anything I can hear or sense, it very beneficial

This is true for most DACs that can process PCM and DSD.
Again, DoP is DSD (after a simple decoding that does not affect the sound quality in any way) so you cannot apply the usual digital filters to DoP, just like you can do it with PCM. Also, please do not confuse DoP with DSD converted to PCM, it has nothing to do with it. DoP is DSD "encapsulated" in PCM frames, that's all.

Hope this helps you understand better what DoP is - DSD over PCM=Pure DSD.

Best wishes,
Alex Peychev
APL Hi-Fi

Aplhifi-usa, since I can hear a difference and prefer double DSD to DOP and am told by other pro designers that I should have expected this, I will continue to use double DSD and not use my BMC PureDac, at least in my main system.

Tbg,

I am sorry but which part of the word "same" you do not understand?

DoP and "native" DSD streaming are exact same thing, except that DoP is packed in PCM-like format. Once DoP is "unpacked" it turns out to native/real/pure DSD.
So there is no audio quality difference between that two.

Again, let's not confuse DoP with DSD converted to PCM.

There are few more things that you are welcome to share with your "other pro designers".

1. It is not exactly clear how the ESS Sabre DAC handles DSD, especially when it comes to attenuation. This is something that only ESS can clear up, if they want.

2. The German-made TheSycon ASIO driver for XMOS does support "native" DSD.

3. Your BMC PureDac does support DSD64 and double DSD128, probably in DoP format, though not specified on their specs.

4. JRiver MC19 can convert any PCM file to:

a) DoP at DSD64
b) DoP at double DSD128
c) native DSD stream at double DSD128

Bottom line, your current DAC operating at double DSD128 should sound the same as your BMC PureDac operating at double DoP/DSD128, which the JRiver MC19 supports as well.

If you still hear audio quality difference, it is because something else in the signal path is inferior or superior.

Hope this helps!

Best ,
Alex Peychev
APL Hi-Fi

Alex - I've tried to explain the same thing to Tbg, but apparently our words are falling on deaf ears. (That's just an expression that seems to apply in this case, and is not meant as any condemnation of Tbg's hearing acuity!) He is apparently convinced that DoP is not truly native DSD and cannot be swayed from that belief. I do appreciate your effort though, since I gave up several posts ago!