What’s the verdict then? Is this Sw1x DAC 3 balanced worth the money?
also what’s your experience with Audio Note DAC 5?
There is no answer to such a question. I can only speak for myself. It is an excellent DAC. My take on it seems to change day to day. Some days I am absolutely convinced there is no better digital to be had at any price. Other days it sounds just very good. I am now of the opinion that one "problem" with the DAC III B is that it accentuates the difference between good digital recordings and mediocre ones. I have been listeing to a fair amount of digital streamed with Qobuz lately and the variation in recording quality or perhaps the stream is again very high. The DAC II Special I owned before trading up struck me as being 95% as good and it too seemed to strike me differently on different days. This does not happen with my vinyl rigs. Sure, some days my hearing just sounds off. And crappy pressings do sound crappy. But for the most part my vinyl rigs never fail to please immensely.
I listened to an Audio Note system at Axpona '19. I came back to that room over and over. I don't recall which DAC they had in the room but whichever model it was sounded amazing as did the entire system.