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R2R next? Don't like ESS

Can you recommend a good 'starter' R2R dac?  I've been through a number of ESS Sabre dacs and they're not for me.  IMO, they lack a certain transparency that I'm after.  Point of reference:   The *only* dac that I've heard that is decent to my ears is a 10yr old Maverick Audio D3 w/ Sparkos OpAmp swap.  *This* was great.  Alas, I sold it because I thought I could do better with something newer.  

Geshelli's offerings have piqued my interest - the J3 in particular - but it's an ESS chip.  Wondering if I should make the jump to something R2R - Denafrips, Broder Patrol..  thoughts?

martinman

Showing 2 responses by ghdprentice

ghdprentice
7,492 posts
 

@sls883 

+1 Yes, it is all in the implementation.

ghdprentice
7,492 posts
 

Just a note. Budget DACs tend to sound like the technology they use... but this difference disappears as you move up the ladder (hehe). So, as a guess DACs over $3.5K or so generally don't reflect the chip set or technology used. At this level, enough design effort is put in to tune the player to a specific sound. 

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