Opinions of the EMM DCC2 SE

I've been using my DCC2 SE for the past month while my Jadis JP 200 is in for repairs and refurbishing. It is a very, very good line stage, transparent and detailed, with excellent dynamics and soundstaging. It is not, however, a tubed preamp, and it definitely lacks the bloom and last bit of dimensionality you get from a tubed preamp (this was made absolutely clear to me when I borrowed a Shindo preamp for a week), particularly your Hovland, which I recall seemed to lean to the romantic side of neutral when I heard it. As a DAC, the DCC2 is tough to beat--I'd rank it in the top tier of DACs available today, and its synergy with the CDSD transport due to the optical connections is remarkable. I can get used to the lack of bloom, but I don't think it's ultimately as seductive to me as my Jadis, which I miss. Great back-up to have, though. The other thing to remember about the DCC2 is that it has only one analog input, so it's not as versatile as other line stages. I have to choose between my turntable and my tuner as my analog source, and I find that to be a drawback.

the DCC2SE has TWO ANALOG INPUTS- one rca and the other xlr.
i bought a pair of cardas xlr-male to rca female ($65) so i could use both. the preamp is crystal clear but it lacks the last bit of musicality- my terms in this case would be "body" or "palpability", arguably stupid descriptions for something i can't quite describe. but something is bleached out of the mix, and i don't use tubes. a rowland consummate preamp (an ancient piece of junk, right?- not!) provided a more pleasing sound- although slightly less detailed, and a touch more grain.
i am biased towards the rowland sound though. i haven't heard the hovland, but i think from the reviews on it, that it is ultimately way-noisier than the DCC2-SE, unlike the newer tube-designs that have a much-improved noise-floor.
EMM should make a stand-alone 2-channel dac just like they finally came out with a stand-alone cd player. but you could always spring for a dac-6e (the non-se would be pretty good also, and inexpensive these days), and just use the 1st two outputs.

Hi

What problems with the sound are you experiencing with your Hovland?

I found the emmlabs dcc2 se was an impressive line stage that was almost as good as the audio research ref 3 when paired with my dartzeel amplifier. I sold it only because I wanted the dartzeel preamplifier which has a special synergy with the dartzeel amplifier which in combination outshines the emmlabs preamp handily.

Michael