DDC Comparisons

Oh crap, please disregard my prior recommendation on the U18.  I meant all else being equal I’d take the SU6 over the Iris. 🙄😖  I’m not familiar with the U18 but highly doubt I’d take it over an Iris.  Sorry for my confusion. 

Denafrips is going thru their lineup upgrading everything.  I would like to know if they will be upgrading all their DDC's.  

The Matrix X+SPDIF 2 was one of the first. If your DAC makes the i2s interface sound better you would probably get better SQ with a different DAC.

I previously owned the Hermes and now the Singxer SU-6 (with a 9V LPS). The Hermes I had was glitchy and I couldn’t make it reliably work in my system. The Singxer does not audibly/significantly change the sound, either for the better or worse, but it has been operationally rock solid and it does allow me to use a variety of outputs. Also, its I2S output is adjustable for different pin configurations.

The SU-6 is currently on the sidelines, and I am running USB direct from my streamer into my DAC, with a Singxer UIP-1 (with Channel Islands 7V LPS) in-line to clean the USB signal. As with the SU-6, I do not hear anything particularly different with the UIP-1 in the chain, but nothing worse either. It sounds good, at least as good and maybe a bit better than with S/PDIF out of the SU-6.

The U18 has 4 different I2s settings. With my Gustard dacs I used the first setting (Gustard). With my new Audio Mirror Tubadour V, I use the #4 setting. That's the PS Audio setting which Tubadour uses. That feature alone makes the extra cost of the U18 plenty worth it.