What is the best DAC ever made?

There is no best dac ever made.

I have an Accustic Arts Dac MK4 which I'm really enjoying connected with a Oracle 2000 transport, compared this dac with a Zanden and prefered the "AA" in my system but really could have lived with either.

Murataltuev, curious when you did your comparison between the Berkely and AA Tube DAC what your system set-up consisted of along with what tubes you had in the AA Tube DAC.

I have not directly compared the Berkely as of yet but have put the AA up against many other DAC's costing substantially more and it never sounded "bad" Actually it sounded so good that I currently still use it.

If you could also describe what you did not like.

Hi Murataltuev, Thx for the response. My system consist of different pces than Teajays, firstly he has MAG 20 panels and I use MBL 101E speakers and at no time have I ever heard my AA Tube Dac sound as you put it "very bright", "soundstage desintegrated" and lastly "highs irritated"

I'm at lost for words!

This is totally off the wall, something most defiantly was wrong going on in your set-up but most defiantly not the characteristics nor fault of the AA Tube Dac.

Now I can understand your remarks in your prior posting but something else was going on, too bad you did not get to hear the real characteristics.

Murataltuev,making such a statement suggesting these are in another league is very bold.

I'm quite interested in what you heard in your system. Please share some details regarding the sonic differences between them.

See below what Teajay's experience has been

11-13-09: Teajay
If Pubul57, had not beat me to the punch, I was going to add to this thread way I still find the Accustic Arts Tube DAC to be a keeper in my system.

I have spent a considerable amount of time listening/auditioning the following new crop of either DACS or CD players: 1) Berkeley Alpha DAC 2) Weiss Medea DAC 3) PS Audio Perfact Wave combo 4) Meridian 808i2 5) DCS Puccini 5) EMM reference player

All of the above were used for red book, I don't care about SACD or other high rev formats, and I did not find any of them to be better to my ears then the AA Tube DAC. They are all quite good and offer different sonic signatures, my favorite among them was the Weiss and Berkeley, I would put them in the type one sonic category, and was surprized at the performance of the Meridian 808i2, it just was ok, yet John Atkinson of Stereophile thiks its the best on redbook he has ever heard. But then at the end of the sonic day, I did not find any of them surpassing the musicality or over all performance of the AA Tube DAC in my system.

I do know that when a friend auditioned a totally broken in EMM Labs SE in my system in comparsion with the AA Tube DAC, he returned the EMM to the dealer and then purchased the AA Tube DAC. In my system the AA DAC was much more musical/natural, all on redbook CDs, and that's way my friend chose to purchase the AA Tube DAC.

Hi Murataltuev, thanks for the response. What tubes were being used in the Acustic Arts Tube dac, did you guys experiment with any others and what digital cable were you using along with the connection and of course transport. If you used it with the original tubes you never heard the dacs true qualities. I will keep those pces that you have mentioned on my list to get to compare. Referring to Teajay's responses about AA product I have found in the past to have a similar taste and when I tried different pces found to be on the same page of what my thoughts are. That being said there are so many flavours of sound and the rest of your set-up also greatly depends on the end result so possibly yours and mine just differ which is okay.

Hi Pubul57, if you read my past threads you will see that my answer would be yes to the cd7, it's been a long time now since so you would need to read through to find what my thoughts were. Good to read that you are happy with what you have, that's what it's all about.

Guys who are ranting about the word "best", anyone who has been in this hobby for any length of time knows there is no best in anything so don't get so worked up about when you read a thread referring to such.

Hi Pubul57, I was looking through my past threads and couldn't locate but I believe it was the Acustic Arts Dac MK4 at that time compared to the ARC cd7 which I had on lone and prefered the AA which as you know has no tubes.

I use to have CAT JL3 Sig. MK11 mono's but don't use tube amps currently, looking at Teajay's system info. he uses solid state, I do use a tube pre though.