Sfrounds,
Its tough hitting that just right balance! I spent about 6-9 months trying to figure out which way to go for my digital front end. At various times I thought about going with a modified Music Hall, Jolida, Shandling, or keeping my CDP and going Benchmark or Bel Canto. Fortunately, I had several bids for used equipment turned down, which gave me more time to read and think about what I really valued in sound qualities. My existing system erred on the side of too much detail and resolution. I could experience incredible and quite lovely reproduction of the upper harmonics of a flute, but ear drum piercing upper harmonics with a piccolo. Boring it was not! Unfortunately, warm and sweet it was also not! Out of all of this thinking and biding, I began to think about all the hype on the filterless non up-sampling DAC's. I was hearing people talk about stuff like pace, imaging, warmth, detail, etc. It seemed like these DAC's were delivering a really good balance of attributes that I really value. I also noted that they tend to be really inexpensive, and I could always resell or perhaps add a Benchmark DAC and keep both. There are a number of inexpensive but well received filterless 16 bit DAC's out there. I decided to give the Audio Mirror DAC a try, and I've been very happy with the decision. No second thoughts at all. Maybe something like this would strike the right balance for you.
Its tough hitting that just right balance! I spent about 6-9 months trying to figure out which way to go for my digital front end. At various times I thought about going with a modified Music Hall, Jolida, Shandling, or keeping my CDP and going Benchmark or Bel Canto. Fortunately, I had several bids for used equipment turned down, which gave me more time to read and think about what I really valued in sound qualities. My existing system erred on the side of too much detail and resolution. I could experience incredible and quite lovely reproduction of the upper harmonics of a flute, but ear drum piercing upper harmonics with a piccolo. Boring it was not! Unfortunately, warm and sweet it was also not! Out of all of this thinking and biding, I began to think about all the hype on the filterless non up-sampling DAC's. I was hearing people talk about stuff like pace, imaging, warmth, detail, etc. It seemed like these DAC's were delivering a really good balance of attributes that I really value. I also noted that they tend to be really inexpensive, and I could always resell or perhaps add a Benchmark DAC and keep both. There are a number of inexpensive but well received filterless 16 bit DAC's out there. I decided to give the Audio Mirror DAC a try, and I've been very happy with the decision. No second thoughts at all. Maybe something like this would strike the right balance for you.