Owned one a few years ago, bought it new when they were 149.00. It's decent for that price, certainly better than the least expensive HRT inline dac. I think it uses an Analog Devices dac chip. It definitely isn't the last word in resolution but it sounds decent. Not hard or etched sounding but I think it only goes up to 96K. I had one for 6 months or so but sold it and bought a Wyred4Sound DAC. Night and day difference in sound quality.
I thought it was rather busy looking and the display does not tell you the sampling rate. I hated the bright blue lights on it. If you are stuck on Emotiva, I would look for the more recently discontinued XDA-2. It is much better sounding. The XDA-1 is at least a 3 year old DAC.
I thought it was rather busy looking and the display does not tell you the sampling rate. I hated the bright blue lights on it. If you are stuck on Emotiva, I would look for the more recently discontinued XDA-2. It is much better sounding. The XDA-1 is at least a 3 year old DAC.