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Rank the top reference DACs you've heard

Usually the battle goes between DCS Vivaldi set and MSB Select II.

However, since Swiss/Japanese (boutique level) DACs are usually out of reach, we rarely read about ultra high end DACs and where they fit with the rest of the league ($5000-$100,000) price range. 

There are other topologies and SOTA designs floating around, what comes to mind:
- new DCS (above Vivaldi) flagship to be announced
- Wadax Atlantis Reference
- Esoteric Grandioso D1X (Dual Mono)
- TotalDAC Twelve Mk2
- Lampizator Golden Gate 2
- Chord Dave+mscaler
- CH Precision C1+X1 (Dual Mono) 
- Soulution 760
- Aries Cerat Kassandra Ref
- Aqua La Scala mkII Optologic
- EMM Labs DV2/DA2

I mentioned flagship DACs only since the list will be bigger and we will lose focus of the subject. It is interesting to know some of us "lurkers" or who has reached audio nirvana with his choice of DAC and what did he it compare with. The more input we get, the clearer the big picture will be. 

Let's go!
128x128emerald

Showing 1 response by sns

sns
3,003 posts
 

@hifixman I reached a point some years ago when I no longer heard added resolution as hearing new details such as something low level in mix being suddenly heard. Since then, I've heard it mostly as sound stage and imaging differences, in the sense of greater expansion and dimensionality. I know Ed Meitner equates lower jitter very much with sound stage expansion, not just with digititus. Based on much research, the Playback Design and Mojo consistently rise to top of my list for possible dac auditions.

 

While I've heard nice dacs over the years, if not auditioned in my present system hard for me to make informed decision. I seek changing out only one variable at a time for this.

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