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 3 responses by oddiofyl

I know Eversolo gets a lot of love but , before buying  type "eversolo problems" in your Google AI search bar....   They fail miserably at firmware support.   No USB output on an A6 since June with no resolve.  This was a unit that worked fine for 11months 

They did something in the last update where it now occasionally recognizes the DAC but still no sound.   That's at least 4 updates since reported.  No response from Eversolo just days before warranty was up.   They are throw away electronics should something go wrong after warranty. 

Buy an Innuos if you have a large music library.    

Nothing worse than sibilance.  Makes me want to turn it off.  My amp sounds sweet , has great detail and has great bass .   Not thin sounding at all , great mid bass .  I sold my RME DAC  (akm), not that it wasn't a very good DAC it was, but the internal DAC just sounded better to me.   

My Integrated Amp has the ESS9038 chip and digital  sources sound great through it.  Firm believer that it is the implementation of the DAC chip, but more importantly the analog stage.