Soul Note DACs

"Expandable to dual mono DAC

You can select between STEREO, MONO Lch, and MONO Rch modes on the D-2. In MONO mode, the ES9038PROs in the opposite channel are disabled, thus doubling the power margin and making channel separation practically infinite."

Interesting! 

Cue up the "I don't like ESS Dac" posters. 

Soul Note and Esoteric (on their top few models) are the only DACs I have seen which let users double up for dual mono. I compared my D-2 to just a single one in stereo mode, while not twice as good it feels appreciably better. 

@996turbo911 - I've been considering a Soul Note D2 dac. Also considering the T+A Dac 200. 

Can you share your thoughts and observations on the Soul Note D2 dac? Would love to hear your impressions. 

I saw mention on a Soul Note dealer's site that the D2 DAC is being discontinued so there should be some good deals available. Also read that the replacement DAC may not be released until the 3rd quarter of the year.

@bluethinker 

I saw your pm , unfortunately I'm not trusted with the ability to reply on pm so I'm gonna post some of my impressions of the very excellent soulnote d-2 dac with the external clock x-3 !

As you all can see on my system page I did pair it with innuos pulsar trough Shunyata sigma usb and I've got no plans on changes in the foreseeable future. 

To make it simple, you need to spend alot more to find better but it's very dependent on what you feed it with as in every case.  ( if I had the funds A zenith NG with phenix lite card would take the place of the pulsar) 

I've compared my dac to chord dave and still preferred the d2 but that maybe a matter of taste,  I have tested it against top models from denafrips and they are not even close. I might end up with nagra or dcs or something else in the future but for now...

And yes the the external clock really makes a big difference! 

@bluethinker I'm not good at describing sound so I can't write all eloquent like many people seem able around here. I just know the D2 sounds correct to my ears. I've spent a lot of time listening to live acoustic music, from jazz to classical to singer with guitar type music. And the D2 (especially a pair in mono mode) captures that feeling better than anything I've tried.

For reference I had owned a bunch of older dCS, Accuphase, Denafrips, Levinson, Berkeley Alpha, and others. More recently I went from Esoteric to Aqua to a Mola Mola Tambaqui, all of them had their strong points. But the pair of Soul Note D2 DACs has been my favorite so far, even if it didn't cost as much as some of the others. I don't know if this is my forever DAC but I'm very happy with it at the moment.

@iseland 

I am curious how the external clock would contribute to the system, especially in my case as I guess I would need two of them? Not a cheap upgrade in that case but maybe one that I will explore sooner or later. 

If it makes any sense,  the clock makes the room bigger and you get better separation between instruments .

And that's very good to begin with, it just gets better with the external clock. 

@iseland Thank you, that is actually one of my most important aspects of music reproduction. Trying to capture the space. Looks like I have a pair of the X3 clocks in my future!