It's still breaking in...Steve at Empirical says three days, and I'm not there yet. For reference, my digital front end is a Cullen/Wyred-modified Sonos player, into the synchromesh (replacing the DIP), feeding a Monarchy NM24 DAC, Classe 15 amp and Aerial 5B/REL nearfield+sub setup.
For me, the Cullen modification was a big change/improvement over stock. Adding the DIP was a discernable improvement, but nowhere near as large as the Cullen mod was. Replacing the DIP with the SM, right out of the box, it's clear that the level of improvement is in the order of that which I experienced Cullen mod - that is, an immediate and unequivocal improvement, rather than something subtle. The 'amount of difference' seems closer to the difference between a stock vs modded Sonos than the difference between a DIP vs no DIP.
My sense is that if you were pleased with the DIP on the Sonos, you would find the SM a large improvement. Steve was great to deal with too. Now he's got me thinking about adding the Hynes power supply to the SM...
In any event, I'm looking forward to listening more.