DAC significantly better than a w4s DAC2-DSDse?

You will sell your preamp with this DAC. It beats it.

Maybe beats this one too DSD-S?

:-)

Best Wishes,
Alex Peychev

I heard lots of DSD at the Newport Beach show last week. We compared the same track, 44.1 PCM versus DSD. Namely track 1 from Kind of Blue. Sorry, but my PCM beat it.

There are so many PCM and DSD DACs, all sounding quite different. I've been doing PCM for the last 20 + years, including DSD converted to PCM. But recent vinyl developments clearly showed that such pure analog sound is quite impossible to beat with PCM, so this is the reason for DSD processing. :-)

My comment was specifically about my volume control technology. Beats 99% of preamps out there.

Beating 99% of the preamps is tricky, especially when you use the Vref of the DAC to adjust the volume. Namely, anything 0.5V below Vcc results in rather compromised DAC chip specifications. Been there done that. :-)

Best wishes,
Alex Peychev

Other than from a manufacturer promoting his own product you've not actually bitten an answer. W4S gear is top notch- if you like what you hear go for another one

Agreed, and W4S is indeed a great value for its price range! However, I do believe that Dddrrreee can find a better performer with his $8K budget.

There are some great DAC contenders in this Audiogon thread, so this might be a useful information.

Best wishes,
Alex Peychev
APL Hi-Fi

You're welcome Dddrrree.

Were there any of the USB / async / XLR DACs in that thread that you particularly liked?

To be quite honest, trying to answer your question from my perspective, there are really only two contenders from that thread.

1. The Lampi DAC, if you are OK dealing with tube rolling.

2. Steve's DAC

Why I am saying this is because I know the "cost no object" efforts such boutique manufacturers put into designing their products, unlike the rest that are made on a budged, mainly in China.

The third best would be the Rowland DAC, but despite that it uses the best in existence audio transformers by Lundahl Made in Sweden, it is far away from the above mentioned choices. IMHO, of course.

Hope this helps!

Best wishes,
Alex Peychev
APL Hi-Fi

Lampi DSD is freaking awesome and I have yet to hear any PCM beat a quality DSD128 recording played back via the Chipless Lampi decoder.

Sure, this is the very reason I've converted to DSD and also have a proprietary PCM to DSD encoder, as well as "chip-less" DSD to Analog converter built in my reference DSD-M.

The DSD encoder can do DSD64, DSD128 and DSD256.

Funny thing is that my chip-less converter was developed pretty much at the same time with Lampi. I've have emailed Lukasz, but never heard back from him. :-)

Of course, Ed Meitner of EMM Labs has done this long time ago before anyone else, but the technology used for PCM to DSD conversion and chip-less DSD D/A converter is very important for the final sound quality. This is the reason why every such DAC example is sounding different.

All in all, as I've mentioned in the past, to my ears, and per my vinyl rig reference, the DSD is the only ticket coming close to pure analog.

Best wishes,
Alex Peychev
APL Hi-Fi