@kuhyay
- "When tuning components in my system, I’ve preferred ones that are more detailed/transparent rather than overly warm/harmonic. E.g. Telefunken over Amperex or Mullard. Duelund CAST over AN copper.
- Realistic tone/timbre, soundstage, micro-detail, and impactful bass are important to me."
I think your tastes here are along the same as mine. I’ve been using a Burl Audio B2 Bomber DAC for more than 2 years now and have no reason to ever look for another, if this should ever fail for any reason I’ll just replace it with another. The Burl is about $2.5k and made in LA. My front end is only this DAC, fed from a PS Audio PW transport. Short on features possibly, but long on the kind of sq you’re describing.
The Burl is not widely known in hifi circles, but that’s bc it’s not aimed at us. Unlike most other pro names (like Berkeley and others), the Burl company does not attempt to market to us, they only exist to serve the pro realm. This is purpose-built in that it is meant only for the monitoring phase of studio recording applications. This means there’s no advantage for them to design a DAC for their own use that either ’gussies’ the sound up in any way, or sweeps anything less than ideal under the rug - what they needed for the job is something that would reliably show them the true state of affairs about what is in their mix, no more no less.
This DAC does have color, but I found it’s quite well balanced and notably realistic all the way through the range without sounding ’homogenized’ or overtly warmish. The timbre is also very realistic and I found that since this DAC is so subjectively accurate-sounding on its own that it responds beautifully to a good power treatment solution - its attributes only get better and that process doesn’t act to otherwise reveal baked-in design excesses or limitations with the sq. That was actually hard for me to come by, don’t let anyone tell you that there are no real differences between DACs, I’ve found them to be pretty much ginormous.
The tech is interesting: class-A op amps instead of a complicated analog output stage, no caps in the signal path and all, but to me the most important thing is that the entire DAC was built by ear - From Start to Finish - invariably, every time I see this claim about ANY audio gear it turns out after closer inspection that they only mean a particular part of the design - not the whole unit - oh well, that’s marketing for you. Having lived with the B2 for a long while now, I can safely say this applies to the whole unit, but it makes sense to me, there’s just no other way Burl could get the right kind of tool they needed for the job - they couldn’t buy it anywhere, so they had to make it themselves. But, Burl is well respected in the pro world, chances are better than 50/50 that any recording made in the last 30 yrs or so was made on their equipment. That’s my ’commercial’ for them I guess, but I’ve come to be a believer now, and I don’t mind being a fanboy if the product is right enough for it.
But, if you’re looking for a DAC that really punches up the center image to emphasize that lead vocal, this is not that kind of DAC. Instead nothing is emphasized or de-emphasized, the soundstage is neutrally laid out before you and cross-channel pans track exactly like they should (if you’re speakers are set up for it). But, one of the highlights of this DAC is the bass - very extended, muscular, dynamic and agile. In short, it’s built to Move! Very lifelike and responsive. My speaker system is true full-range with very healthy output at 10 Hz (4, 18" IB woofers) and this is the first DAC I’ve used that truly does equal justice to Every genre.
This is a PCM DAC, but it may well be the best-sounding PCM DAC there is. It came out in 2010, but don’t let its age fool you, its sq is top notch.
You can buy a version of this DAC that has a toslink in, however I've never used Tidal, so I'm less sure about the connectivity there.
