Upsampling DACs

Look on my thread about the Allnic D5000 DHT.

It best my EMM dac2x by a wide margin and much cheaper. It is more versatile than the Empirical Audio Overdrive SE but produces a different sound. Although Empirical does not upsample, it plays redbook files better than the same tracks in DSD format on the EMM.

I have not a to b the Empirical to Allnic formally. However, Allnic has not left my system. Often times I get hairs standing up my back on certain tracks and I really like that.

I have a review pending for the Allnic D5000. What part of the country are you located?

I would be interested in hearing a to b with Lapmi series dacs as this would be a great comparison.

The Vitus RD-100 is an excellent upsampling dac and employs filter-down technology from the previous Signature series spinner (SCD-010). It also includes a good analogue linestage which uses a new version of Vitus's relay-based volume control and 2 'true' analogue inputs (1 rca + 1 xlr), including an array of digital inputs.

The RD-100 benefits from extremely wide bandwidth, future-proof discrete modular architecture and impeccable build quality. The sound is neutral, natural, flowing and sounds somewhat tube-like in terms of its tonal saturation, texture and dimensionality. An easy recommendation, unless you need a good sacd player, in which case i'd recommend the Vitus RCD-101. The dac section is in that player is on par with the RD-100, but omits the analogue linestage.

Ok, thanks guys, much appreciated. How much are these units?

Dave, the Vitus RD-100 is $14kUSD retail, whilst the RCD-101 is about $2kUS more. A good Dealer however should be able to do a deal south of that. Not cheap, but I still rate these components as high end bargains imho.

Dave - I think you're unnecessarily limiting your enjoyment by restricting your choices to a certain technology. Years ago, I went into a dealer asking for stand-mount speakers because I thought they were better than floor-standing for some reason. The dealer said "rather than looking for a certain type of speaker, why don't you just try to get something you like?".

It sounds stupidly simple, but I can't tell you how many people here do the same thing in one way or the other - they want an upsampling dac, a dac with a certain chip, a non-oversampling dac, whatever. IMO, it's the wrong way to go about things.

Judging from your system, you're probably not in the market for an EMM or Vitus, but seem to think very highly of the Metrum Octave, the Auralic Vega, and the Eastern Electric.

BTW - that Onkyo you have is not a bad player for the money. What are you trying to achieve - warmth? That's what most people seem to want. Nothing against Bryston, but warmth isn't their strong suit.