I went from Benchmark DAC2 to Terminator. I still have the Benchmark so I'll put it back in to see if any useful observations emerge.
In my system, it took about a month to acclimate to the Terminator. At some point in that process it seemed to exhibit that old "loudness" button sound for low volume. That is, bass and percussion seemed fully "there" before vocals, which gave a sense of instruments moving forward or in front of the singer. But I realized that if I brought the voice up to "there" then everything sounded glorious without excessive bass or percussion. It's almost like an instrument that you need to fully engage, and then it's revelatory and involving. But this is "in my system" and there's so many variables, especially speaker response.
As for the DDC's, the Iris seems awfully close to the components in the existing USB input of the Terminator, and the Gaia has lots of stuff I don't need, so I'm hoping the upcoming Hermes hits the sweet spot of maximizing to USB to I2s path.
In my system, it took about a month to acclimate to the Terminator. At some point in that process it seemed to exhibit that old "loudness" button sound for low volume. That is, bass and percussion seemed fully "there" before vocals, which gave a sense of instruments moving forward or in front of the singer. But I realized that if I brought the voice up to "there" then everything sounded glorious without excessive bass or percussion. It's almost like an instrument that you need to fully engage, and then it's revelatory and involving. But this is "in my system" and there's so many variables, especially speaker response.
As for the DDC's, the Iris seems awfully close to the components in the existing USB input of the Terminator, and the Gaia has lots of stuff I don't need, so I'm hoping the upcoming Hermes hits the sweet spot of maximizing to USB to I2s path.