I wish I could be so enthusiastic about the Art DI/O....but I didn't have that kind of experience. I succumbed to the hype and bought one. I replaced the weird jacks with RCAs, and then used very good interconnects. I then compared it to my Audiomeca Enkianthus. Good for the money (cheap!), but the Enkianthus smoked it. The DI/O sounds good until things get a little busy. Suddenly all of your images are homogenized with little or no separation. My system is very similar to Vtvu's, except that I use an RDP-1 digital DAC to provide volume and a Joule Electra OTL with the Merlin Millenium speakers. From my experience with cheap digital, melding images together is exactly what it does. My CEC TL51 and Musical Fidelity X-Ray did much better than the DI/O did hooked up to a mega-buck transport with megabuck digital cables. I then used the DI/O to build a small system for my ex-wife, and that's where it remains. I wish good digital could be that inexpensive.
I also had a Meitner Super Bidat about 4 DACs ago. It was great in it's day, but there are much better DACs out there now. I compared it to the 24/96 Electrocompaniet EMC-1, and sold it. The new DACs have so much more information with the upsampling process. It's just no contest.
I also had a Meitner Super Bidat about 4 DACs ago. It was great in it's day, but there are much better DACs out there now. I compared it to the 24/96 Electrocompaniet EMC-1, and sold it. The new DACs have so much more information with the upsampling process. It's just no contest.