Have you heard the new Zanden digital gear?

The Zanden in my opinion brings a purity, life, energy, excitement and soul that a lot of other state of the art digital does not. It's the real deal and the reviews I've read are on the money in describing it's sound essentially accurately.

One thing that I'd warn that is not extensively brought up is that the player as you can imagine due to it's design is quite sensitive to the transport you match it with. It can sound amazing with a good transport but transcendent with a great one. I've tried several and so have friends who also have the DAC and they've all noticed the same thing.

The Audio Note of course is very good and there are some similarities to the Zanden which has a similar design philosophy. Having heard the 3.1x and not the 4.1x in my search for the ultimate DAC, I'd have to say that the Zanden allows you to forget somewhat more that you're listening to a playback device and to connect with the music somewhat more. My experience with the 3.1x is that it was smooth, possibly too smooth though quite pleasant to listen to, it did however impart a consistent character to everything I heard on it. The Zanden brings the musical event home with aplomb and has less of a character of slick oiled back smoothness; individuality remains but life, energy, voices, etc. have more real to life uniqueness to them IMHO.