High resolution digital is dead. The best DAC's killed it.

The  Sigma Delta architecture has to my ears a sound that gives digital a bad reputation. I own a Wadia 15 which uses the fabulous Burr Brown PCM63 and considering what I paid for this second hand I am surprised more folks don't snap them up.
The TDA1543 was mentioned, also good is the IMO better TDA1541, PCM 1702 and some implementations of the 1704. Also UA D20400

I have an Oppo 103 and after living with its screeching disregard for human dignity, obtained a better sounding DAC to send my music to, a Bryston BDA-1. Yes it was better, quite good even, but still not right. Then came the Wadia and WOW, music music music, but, and I'm not concerned, only does redbook. A game changer. Wadia 25 outstanding, uses 4x1702 with slightly different sound and run don't walk if you find a Wadia 9, uses 8xPCM63.

There are many DACs  using the above mentioned chips that are for sale used. Lots of guys that owned these DACs, not realising what they had, traded them in on the latest craze of Sigma Delta super hires units.
http://vasiltech.narod.ru/CD-Player-DAC-Transport.htm
Check out the link for very many players or DAC's that use the above. I modded an inexpensive Marantz CD40 that uses the TDA1541 and with Lukasz Fikus' help of Lampizator fame came straight off the DAC  chip's pins to the grids of a tube completely bypassing their cheap inferior output stage. Later cut the traces to render it NOS. Non oversampling. This dirt cheap little thing sounded amazing. Try your hand at it, has lots of space to work and you can find them for practically nothing. You may still find instructions on his site.
 
Most of the Philips units shared the same board as Marantz so must be thousands of them floating around. Look out for a CD85 or CD95 which uses TDA1541s1 single crown and excellent transport. Great player as is and modified will beat most stuff.

Absolute phase is audible but the majority of listeners are unaware of the phenomenon or have heard it and deemed it insignificant, probably the same ones who can't hear cable differences.

Absolute phase is when the leading pressure wave reaches the listener in the same phase as originally produced. Take for example a spoken word like 'push'. The compressive wave launch will reach the listener and drive his eardrums inwards. A reversed phase will create a rarefaction when it reaches the listeners ears and suck them outwards. Think of a kick drum.


Incorrect phase then means the poor listener is using more mental correction effort to try and add realism on top of all the other reproduction issues where the brain has to try make allowances for background noise, distortion and little or no room treatment etc. Absolute phase is often subtle and occasionally astonishing.
I had my CD collection marked to indicate phase. Lots blank (meaning can't tell a difference) some normal phase and some reverse phase. My Wadia DAC has a phase button which I leave to suit the majority and only occasionally change.

@ geoffkait The effect is not system dependant, it is very real and generally impresses when first noticed. What is system dependant is the extent to which it is heard. The battery test you mentioned works to show the direction of woofer travel. The tweeter will not respond via the XO because its series cap will do its job and block DC which is merely academic because the speaker designer, one has to assume, knew what he was doing and designed for proper phase tracking around the XO frequency. It is not necessary to concern yourselves whether the tweeter is in phase or not. Changing both speaker terminals will invert phase to the speaker XO and the tweeter will follow suit.  2,3 or 4- way speakers same story.

@ erik_squires  Richard Vandersteen's big play is for achieving Time coherence
 which is accomplished by physical driver alignment and in the XO and is one of the best values around. Its the end result. Tweeters or midrange drivers may be connected electrically out of phase to place them acoustically inphase. Polarity is chosen for best performance at XO  Think you mentioned full-range drivers, which operate without any XO as such and have their own special sound but introduce other issues. You mentioned 'non R2R DACs' you were impressed with, care to share.