Sound to match Zen iFi Stream

@lanx0003 I misspoke or used my words wrong. I meant to say that I've tried a lot of the budget-ish streamers except for the Halo Red. I re-read what I wrote & it's not what I meant lol. I have never listened to or owned the Red. It is one that I have been interested in. The Red & the  Rivo Plus. 

I did receive my uDac today. I hooked it up to the IFI Neo Stream (which I feel is an improvement over the Zen Stream) but only by USB. I do have a short I2s cable but I'm just trying to burn the uDac in right now. I have my TV running into it by optical at the moment. 

I didn't have my Pontus 15th in the living room where I put the uDac. I had the RME & when I switched to the uDac the height of the soundstage was very noticeable. The clarity was better..as was imaging focus. That was only with it playing a couple hours. I did notice how hot the uDac gets. I'm looking forward to its presentation after some hours on it. 

@tubeguy76  I don't want to take credit from the gentleman who first started promoting the SMSL PO100 Pro with the Ultra. I'm not sure if you've seen his video, but I took his advice and tried out this well-built, sub-$80 DDC. It really works well with the Ultra.  

The device measures well on ASR and, on my system, achieves 80-85% of the performance of a Gustard U18 when using an I2S connection. The performance will vary depending on your system, so I suggest trying other connections for yourself. It's so affordable that if you don't like it, you can return it to Amazon at no loss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYoRDOfUSGI&t=28s

@mattw73  Yes, it reaches 104-105° F on my infrared thermometer gun. As long as it's still touchable, it should be okay. According to Soon, the entire chassis acts as a heatsink.  After complete broken-in, I suggest you switch it to standby mode (but don't necessarily need to unplug the power supply) to avoid nonstop heat attack.

I tried it with an iFi iPower X (15V / 1.5A), which is less than 2A, but Soon said not to worry about it. I found that it doesn't make a difference compared to the stock power supply. One trustworthy reviewer reported that switching to a Linear Power Supply (LPS) doesn't offer much improvement, so I didn't bother. It implies that Harmony has already optimized its SMPS for micro Dac.

My unit is working well so far. The only glitch I've found is that the display sometimes doesn't turn off, even when set to do so. I reported the issue to Harmony, and Soon said they were able to replicate the issue and it would be fixed in the next firmware update, but I haven't received any notification yet.

My impression of the sound quality was consistent with yours, although for some reason, it took me a longer while to get there. During the break-in period, I often unplugged it at night, which some people say slows down the process, even if the total number of hours reaches the suggested amount. You might want to consider leaving it on all the time during the break-in period.