The reason I keep my 14+ year old Esoteric UX3 SACD player is because of the dual Burr Brown PCM 1704 R-R DAC’s. There is an analog sound that is just so right sounding. In my opinion it is far better than any of the ESS chips as I owned 2 Wyred4Sound dac’s and I always found a brightness to them with a tipped up treble. The same for when I brought my Esoteric player to hear it against the newer models which used the Ashi Kashi dac chips, no where as smooth or analog sounding. They were much more crisp sounding that gave me a splitting headache after a half hour or so.
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?