I found the review interesting. But having owned a DAC8 for the past year didn't agree with there findings. I listened to every DAC I could find including some astronomically priced ones, most at home and went with the DAC8 by a long shot. Musical and analog like would be it's biggest improvements over the other's. I belong to an audio club, so many pairs of good ears have heard the DAC8, it is loved by all that hear it. I guess TAS makes mistakes too.
Unusual TAS bomb
Something you don't see too often in this month's issue of TAS - a truly bad component review, of an Audio Research piece none-the-less. Alan Taffell reviewing the the DAC8 said "Overall the DAC 8 is simply not as involving, musically informative, or relaxing as it must be to compete at its price point" and that might have been the most polite thing he said about it. I've gotten so used to reading fawning reviews I almost didn't think they had it in them to really pan a piece of gear.