I wonder how much of the above we all comprehend? What was the question again?!
Any DAC with the top shelf DA chip-sets is halfway to nirvana, the other half is quite a mark of the jitter and clock designs...that’s the hard part to DAC design. The designers who get that second part right are leading the market and most of us consumers have no idea what that is all about. Someone above said it is very difficult to hear many differences in a blindfolded Pepsi challenge, I agree with that.
Take a block of gold and machine out a pocket so it slides over a iFi Audio PRO iDSD DAC and then you’ll have a DAC that streams, has a preamp mode, has a tube stage, upsampling filters, ultra-quiet power supply etc. and still sounds sounds better than any $20k DAC on the market.
Machine some solid knobs out of silver and glue them onto the two rotary controls, you’ll still have a DAC that sounds better than a $25k unit.
I have no problem paying $20k plus for a DAC, I don’t care what a DAC costs. I want the BEST DAC for my two systems, and spent a lot of time searching for it, both systems are running McIntosh gear. the office system (near field) is using active ATC monitors where the listener can hear the DAC’s smallest nuances with extreme detail, as well as everything else on the recording.
https://ifi-audio.com/products/pro-idsd/I have two iFi PRO iDSD DACs and until something big happens I don’t think it gets any better.
Steve Segal in Seattle is a very personable dealer who is one-on-one with all his customers.
Any DAC with the top shelf DA chip-sets is halfway to nirvana, the other half is quite a mark of the jitter and clock designs...that’s the hard part to DAC design. The designers who get that second part right are leading the market and most of us consumers have no idea what that is all about. Someone above said it is very difficult to hear many differences in a blindfolded Pepsi challenge, I agree with that.
Take a block of gold and machine out a pocket so it slides over a iFi Audio PRO iDSD DAC and then you’ll have a DAC that streams, has a preamp mode, has a tube stage, upsampling filters, ultra-quiet power supply etc. and still sounds sounds better than any $20k DAC on the market.
Machine some solid knobs out of silver and glue them onto the two rotary controls, you’ll still have a DAC that sounds better than a $25k unit.
I have no problem paying $20k plus for a DAC, I don’t care what a DAC costs. I want the BEST DAC for my two systems, and spent a lot of time searching for it, both systems are running McIntosh gear. the office system (near field) is using active ATC monitors where the listener can hear the DAC’s smallest nuances with extreme detail, as well as everything else on the recording.
https://ifi-audio.com/products/pro-idsd/I have two iFi PRO iDSD DACs and until something big happens I don’t think it gets any better.
Steve Segal in Seattle is a very personable dealer who is one-on-one with all his customers.
Audio Video Concepts and Design
15336 NE 96th PL. Suite C-3
Redmond, WA. 98052
(PH) 425.881.5621
www.avcd.com & steves@avcd.com
I don’t know where to buy the block of gold, but you’ll have plenty of funds left over to do so.