Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Here is my sincere impression... If you decided to go with either of these top tier DAC's, you would walk away with one of the best out there and enjoy your purchase for years to come. These guys BOTH seriously know what they are doing!!! As a buyer, and a very long time enthusiast, I learned something totally new during my current system built. I used to shy away for these small, "One man show" companies and gravitate towards the big guys. These "One man show" guys usually have 4-7 other people working for them and produce top level gear for fair prices that offer way more performance for the dollar then lost of the big name labels can. It's a simply a matter of overhead and production. For those of you who are on the fence, try a Merrill Audio, Empirical, APL, Lampizator, or the many other speaker and electronic manufacturers out there that can't afford an advertising/marketing camping. You jus tight be happy you did.

That is probably the most important point made in this thread. I have always gravitated towards boutique, artisanal manufacturers. A lot the best, most cutting edge gear can be found there. There are downsides, but if you are a true blue phile in search of the ultimate SQ, its the place to be....

I couldn’t agree more with both Matt and then Agear’s follow-up!

Some of my best finds, with nary a downside, have been off the usual radar screens. My former Supratek Chenin (which my son is using) and present Aria Audio WV5-XL pre-amps, Galibier Quattro Turntable, and Wavelength Crimson DAC are some examples….

Contact me and I will build you a DHT DAC that will blow all these away.

When I started building a DAC with DHT output based on Esoteric P-03/D-03 combo was 10 years ago, but not many could afford it. :-)

In my experience, to build a "proper" DHT output stage of a DAC, it has to be separated on two enclosures, one of which is the bulky power supply. Want one? :-)

But what is the purpose of a DAC with DHT output stage connected to an amplifier with DHT output stage? :-)

Best,
Alex Peychev
APL Hi-Fi

Steve N, I like texas instruments-Burr-Brown dac chips myself, listened to many others, always owned The burr-Browns, maybe not to the level you guys are talking about with dac chips, anyway, an oldie but goodie is the 1796 BB, incredible life like treble to say the least, very real sounding, not steril, analitical, cold, good to my ears, I preferred the 1796 over the 1704 that the masses like, cheers

Melbguy1, welcome to this great thread, are you going for the vitus player?

Steve,

I am not throwing out anything else but the truth, and thanks for confirming it.

You can select the digital filter on my DAC and I recommend the profile for 192 to be used for all sample-rates. This simply sounds best.

Usually the digital filter in a delta-sigma converter is set at 2x for 192k, 4x for 96k and 8x for 48k sample rates, resulting in a constant out-of-band noise figure allowing you to use the same analog filter at the output. So you are still using 2x oversampling with 192 mode selected. The D/S modulator speed is fixed and there is nothing you can do about it. Some latest DAC chips support 384k with the digital filter totally bypassed, but this is not the case for the AN DAC device you are using. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Yes, I have read your posts that you don't like the sound of AKM DACs, but try to convince the owners of Esoteric K-01, for example, that their player doesn't sound good because it has AKM inside.

As I said, it is all about preferences (synergy to be exact) and the resulting sound quality, nothing else. This said, there is no universal recipe for anything, including audio.

Best wishes,
Alex Peychev
APL Hi-Fi