Cayin D30 DAC outperforms Weiss, Playback, CH and MSB


Recently I was looking to upgrade my DAC ( Weiss 501mk2). While I was all happy about 501, I asked my local Weiss dealer to lend me their new flagship Helios for a home audition. I could hear the improvement but not justify the doubled price tag in my opinion. Then I was asked by another dealer to try the flagship of SoulNote D3 which is 4 times the price of my 501. Since then I tested in my premise MSB Reference , Esoteric K01-X , Playback Design, CH… all 2 to 5 times the price of my 501. They all sounded better one way or the other but nothing “wow” … 

A friend recommended me to give a try to Cayin D30th (or Cayin Soul D30) , which is a Chinese manufacturer making mostly head fi amps / DAC. I was very hesitant with lots of doubts at first but once I put it side by side to compare with ALL the others,  the Cayin D30 blew them away within the first 30 seconds! 
 

1: Dynamics : all the drums , piano keys strikes are significantly better at any volume level. Microdynamics are much wider 

2: 3 dimensional : by comparison ALL the other DACs produce layers of depth but not in a 3 dimensional imaging like the Cayin. The whole soundstage are much more defined

I played mostly on vinyl but since I had the Cayin I notice I had not play my turntable for over a month! It’s very engaging , musical (analog sound?) I didn’t experience with any of the others DACs 

I feel the Cayin D30 owes some proper exposure : it has two completely independent sets of Chip Set  ESS 9039 Pro (up to DSD512) for the “modern CDs or files” and a Phillips 1307+1547 (1-bit) for the “Classic red book CDs 44.1hz)I found myself most enjoyed with the classic mode with the CDs I bought in the 90s. 
it’s much more balanced, smooth and natural with these “vintage” CDs than most of the remastered/ upsampled  reissues.  Makes me query does all these MQA ,K2, SACD, DD512 format produce better sounding or just “different” sounding? 

Another discovery : the analog portion of this DAC : the separate Power Supply weighs 50i lbs ! I tend to suspect the quality / materials used in the power supply yields a bigger impact on the final SQ, than any of the “modern” digital technologies (MQA / upsmapling rate / connectors and OCXO clock! )

I believed in big name brands but in the last 4 weeks this not so famous DAC just beats every DAC and my ears made the verdict : I sold my Weiss and now a happy owner of Cayin 

Anyone in the market for a high end DAC ($10k+) should give this a serous audition

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@thieliste MPS-5 limited edition, CH1.1 both are not the latest flagship models, I will have another shootout with MPS-8 tonight ! 

Very nice, thank you for the impressions and I look forward to reading more in the future. I keep hearing great things about the Cayin CS100 DAC which is a more affordable option at around $3.5k. So I can only imagine how good the top model will be.

@thieliste I had a local audiophile who owns the latest Playback MPT8+ MPD8 ( can’t remember the model number but it’s their current flagship transport + DAC) compare against the Cayin.  It was a very close call but we only tested red book CD and Cayin’ s dynamic range was 25% better ! Since we only had 5 hours to do the shootout I must say the Playback was not tuned or cable matched to its optimum. If I take the price into the equation then Cayin is a no brainer.