Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

A Streamer Dac is not the same as a pure streamer! I have said this repeatedly. A pure Streamer is a digital device and can have only digital volume control.

I dont understand the confusion here, as I never said a Streamer Dac cant do analog VC. A Dac must be in the chain to get to analog and to thus have analog VC.

Lumin is a DAC, this Krell mentioned above is a Dac. No problem to have analog VC with a DAC, no matter what other upstream functions are in the box.

Devialet amps are Streamer/Amp/Dac and I am pretty sure they have analog VCs. Others like Goldmund have the speakers with built in amp and Dacs an you use a digital processor to stream to them.

Also, to do a proper streamer Dac, analog preamp, one would need an army of programmers and support staff to maintain, support and inprove the control point software...those neat apps that everyone loves.

Lumin and Auralic have like 20+ such people on their staff. Yes, there are generic version of such software that can be used, but the support requirements would kill a one man operation...

I just received my PerfectWave back from PS Audio. Had it upgraded to DirectStream. It is far and away the best $3,000 I've ever spent on any audio equipment. You said you wanted "Looking for musical, emotional, engaging, accurate , with great dimension. Not looking for analytical and sterile."; IMHO this is it. I have Kharma CRM 3.2 speakers, speakers often deemed "analytical", and before this upgrade I was considering swapping them out for something more "musical". Now I can't get up from my couch. This is one of those rare pieces of equipment that makes you want to listen to your entire library anew. It's simply beautiful.

Lastly, reviews of this unit talk about detail retrieval. This is quite true but not in an aggressive fashion. Your reaction isn't, "Wow! That's a lot of detail." but "Hmmm. I hadn't noticed that."

Post lastly, I've never auditioned or heard another top-end DAC so I may not know what I don't know, so.... Good luck.

"A Streamer Dac is not the same as a pure streamer! I have said this repeatedly. A pure Streamer is a digital device and can have only digital volume control."

Wisnon - not sure why your getting so frustrated. No one is refuting your statements. Your information is welcome and, uh, informative. Lol. I was just telling Audiolabyrnth that the component he wants exists already. There are Music server/DAC's available with analog balanced outputs, such as Lumin.

A DAC/streamer (like what Steve will be offering) is different from a DAC/music server (which also includes software to select and control the music from wherever it's stored) like the Lumin. Everyone wants a slightly different product.

For me, I want a music server with built in SSD, linear power supply, audiophile grade through and through. There are actually a lot of these out and more every day. But what many of them lack is the ability to directly access an iTunes folder on my Mac (so I don't have to copy everything already in there to another drive or location), and truly native access within the music server to stream off of services like Tidal and Rhapsody (some have this Antipodes, Auralec, TotalDac I think). The native streaming service will unquestionably be integrated into ALL next gen music servers. The only music server I know that can currently access my iTunes folder is Antipodes (they signed the license with Apple 3 weeks ago to integrate that access). It's a $23- license you pay for with the devise.

So there are already produces from one extreme to the other available. But I think it will take one or two generations for we audiophiles to figure out what we really want and need to have a variety of choices that all do exactly what we want. I would prefer the top tier design philosophy and implementation of the Aurender W20 or the Baetis, but neither has native streaming of Tidal nor access to the iTunes folder directly. And both (Along with the TotalDac) are truly designed for AES or SPDIF output to get their best result. While the Antipodes and Computer Audio Designs are truly designed to work best with a usb DAC like the ODSE or pending ODSX.

Auralec Aries is a very neat little affordable tool that does a lot. It's a temporary solution for many of us. Even the top stores will sell an Aries with a full DCS stack and a Baetis or Aurender server to access streaming on line music. But I don't think it really sounds any better then a properly done Mac mini with external power supply or equally prepared PC server.

As I said, I'm learning and still deciding. As of right now, the unit that, I think, would do it all, is the Antipodes DX. But I don't know how much better it will really sound then my Mac Mini. I'm trying to arrange an audition.

JKMNOP- I have fully auditioned the DirectStream ( read way back in the thread) and I admit it is a great product. But to my ears the ODSE is in a completely different class!

Wisnon, operating an external Samsung 850 Pro connected via some SATA cable through a DC battery might improve some audible parms... I contend that eliminating the cable all together will improve time coupling by a couple of nanoseconds if nothing else... And a DAC-wide battery power or even better an ultra-cap PS would benefit the entire DAC device.

As for the bit twiddling, it is performed because of general purpose machines doing mountains of read/writes that tend to fragment the storage map. in our case, such background storage management demon need not be activated at all.