which DAC to buy ?

As one can see everyone has a favorite.The Kora does not upsample and therefore is not the latest technology.I perfer the sound of the upsampling dacs.I've owned the dodson 217 latest, the kora, and the Audiomeca and find the upsamplers to provide improved focus ,resolution and dynamics.Keep in mind some systems may not allow for the differences to be as notable as the extremes may be inherently missing.Total noise in a system may also cause a lack of inner detail which is the hallmark of higher resolution.

I meant to say that I use the ECM as a transport for the Hermes.

Be certain to listen and make your own decision it is not likely a 16bit dac ,the Kora, can compete with a true upsampling dac with floating point 32/192 resolution.We would invite anyone to bring one to our offices and do a blind test on our reference system with the audiomeca.
Piega c-40
Audio tekne preamp
Tenor amps
Audio tekne line and cd treatment, copulare stands
mephisto transport
8 30 amp breakers
Piega speaker cable
As a matter of fact we invite someone at our expense,plane ticket, room, and 3 meals to bring the latest Kora with them and do a blind test.Customers only no dealers.Will you accept this challange?Call 15407211076

I would like to add that you may bring your owm music and we would also offer some of our discs we know to show the sonic traits we find important.
Whomever accepts this invatation may also help design the evaluation process.Our dac would be completly factory production and whatever modifications you want to do to your dac are acceptable.Let's listen to some tunes.

The Kora Hermes must be giving the Audiomeca product a run for it's money or I doubt you would have seen such a challenge from a product that costs over twice as much. look at the preferences from above threads. Part of the story is in the power supply. The Kora uses two Toroidal transformers. Look inside the Audiomeca.