DACs and bass response?

@goofyfoot: I think we can all agree that what's important is that each listener discover what approach is most rewarding for him/her. 

@gdhal: Thanks for the Joni link. I only got to see her once, in Santa Barbara. That show, with Jaco, Michael Brecker, et al, was made into the album/dvd "Shadows and Light". Santa Barbara, in the 70's/early 80's was an ongoing, overflowing fountain of live music. A few others I attended: Bill Evans (the piano player-- not the sax player), RTF, the Dead (2/27/77), Oregon, Leo Kotke, Pat Metheny, Bonnie Raitt, Santana, Jean Luc Ponty, Albert Collins, Les McCann, Brain Auger, Keith Jarrett, Emmy Lou Harris, BB King, Ravi Shankar, Otis Rush, Ustadd Allauddin Khan. . . those were the days. . . and tickets were so affordable!  Sorry for straying away from the topic of gear. A very Merry Christmas to all !  

Final post: My desire for better bass has been more than amply satisfied.
The Aqua La Voce, it turns out, has a prodigious bass capacity! In fact, I’m frequently astonished by the bass my monitors are delivering, now.

In my system, there were two factors that, until corrected, significantly inhibited what La Voce was capable of delivering: 1) a poorly matched coax cable and 2) jitter from the Jolida cdp that serves as a transport.

As an experiment, I ordered Steve Nugent’s coax cable and his Synchro-mesh re-clocker, not knowing what to expect, but knowing I could return them. Well, they made a very significant difference.

Everyone wants something different from their system. I wanted more focused reproduction of acoustic and electric bass. Once the above problems were addressed, I got that, in spades. Other improvements: greater resolution across the board that is not at all analytical (!), more convincing and colorful instrumental timbres, greater dimensionality/separation to/between instruments (without losing the sense of overall coherence), a greater sense of ease, blacker back-grounds and a much improved sense that the musicians are "in the room" with me.

Disclosure: with the re-clocker in place, my system is somewhat darker sounding, but I personally don’t mind this. I’ve found that the $150 Schiit Loki Mini is sufficient to address any occasional imbalances in this regard. I cannot say whether this is due to the Synchro-mesh itself or some other issue. Needless to say, YMMV.

Bottom line: this has been quite a powerful upgrade. My suggestion to anyone looking to spend $3000 or more on a "musical" DAC: audition La Voce !

As for an Aqua La Voce dealer, I most heartily recommend Alex Siufy at Alma Music and Audio in San Diego.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread.

Congratulations on fixing your Aqua La Voce! Wonderful that you were finally able to get it to work properly. A pity Aqua couldn’t get their jitter rejection circuits to work as claimed but in truth this seems to be a common problem with many DACs. PLL technology is often inadequate in many DACs and incoming jitter is a horrendous problem.

Shadorne: Thanks! This was my first standalone DAC, so I had no previous experience to rely upon-- only what I read online or heard for myself. I frankly didn't know what such a component might contribute to my system.

There are certainly more DACs that I could've demo'd, but as it was, I ended up spending about $500 to ship 3 DACs back and forth, which is not an inconsequential sum in my case. 

It helped that the two others I tried out were, in my system, quite extreme in their presentation; one starkly analytical and the other overly weighty  and congested.  To be fair, it's possible that I could've discovered how to make either of them sound good, but due to their pricing, I couldn't have afforded to do much in that regard. La Voce's price ($3000) gave me the leeway to afford the Empirical gear, which made all the difference. 

How I ended up choosing to demo La Voce after the Metrum and COS DACs, is too convoluted a path for me to remember, let alone describe, but I'm sure glad I did!

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions. 

PS: I can report that the "dark" tonality I noticed in the system was solely due to the cheap Best Buy cable linking transport and re-clocker. As soon as I replaced it with a Blue Jeans coax, a veil lifted and the music immediately became noticeably cleaner and punchier.  

Krell DAC in my Vanguard Digital is phenomenal in all regards.  It comes with a superb preamp and amp as well. :)