Scott Nixon - Sarudac+? TubeDac+? vs CI Audio

I would stick to the straight TUBE DAC. If you have Maggies or stats then the artifical zing of the plus and the slightly lower bass may be your cup of tea. I just ordered a tube dac and upgraded PS after spending a few hours with a friends unit in my system.

I was really impressed, I am a midrange freak and love vocals, and for me I think I made the correct decision.

The CI,dACK,modded PT, Bel Canto 2 and Benchmark are all good and in the right system may be the best.

I have read about several SHOOTOUTS but I could not take them seriously. The author of one shootout used mainly Jazz Instrumentals and my least favorite speaker.

The author of another used the same brand of speakers and listens to RAPP and preferred the ART DI/O

In the end as to the new breed of small Inexpensive DACs I think It's a crapshoot. What works for one may not work for you.

A good transport and cabling will go a long way in Improving the sound. In my system I preferred my JPS Digital AC power cord over the in line Bybee filters.

Good luck and listen to the music, not the components.

Interesting there seems to suddenly be a bunch of these high performing affordable dacs out there. Read a review of the Bel Canto dac on 6 moons that says Wadia sound at low fi costs or something like this and I guess this is the appeal. For less than $1,000 you add a cheap dac like this to an affordable player like my Planet and voila you have the sound of a $5,000 single box. Would be fun to see one of the magazines or soundstage do a shootout with 5 or 6 of the affordable dacs like Scott-nixon, dAck, and Channel Island.

http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/viewtopic.php?t=1004
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- Musical Fidelity A324
- Bel Canto DAC2
- Scott Nixon Tube DAC
- DI/O from Bolder Cables with MENSA mod"

Very interesting