Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Hi Guido,
Your comments remind me of what I hear.... 

Aeris by itself yielded a subtle amount of greater resolution compared to having Criterion in the chain

reminds me of removing my preamp and using one of my passives, either a Goldpoint passive preamp or Endler attenuators direct to amp, and 

with Criterion in the chain, you would experience a subtly warmer presentation that admittedly is quite intoxicating

which is similar to what I hear through my preamp, which is a no gain, buffered unit with external choke power supply and Shallco discrete resistor volume control constructed using Audio Note tantalum resistors. The main difference from your situation is my preamp doesn't add noise.  

It seems most here end up preferring a preamp in their systems, including those who have used a volume control implemented by changing the reference voltage of the dacs, such as with the ODSE.  One reviewer, Steven Plaskin at AudioStream, slightly preferred having the Ayre KX-R preamp in his system to running the ODSE direct to his Ayre MX-R amps, even with the Final Drive buffers in-line. 

Not using the volume direct  to amps approach would make a jump to the Adagio less attractive, even though it is said to sound better than the Pavane because of the significantly increased reference voltage and doubling of the number of dacs.  I really need to find one to audition to find out for sure how much better it sounds and whether I could live with it direct to my amps.  For now, I will be happy to replace the mac mini I have been listening to for the past couple of weeks with my fully upgraded Antipodes DX, which arrives on Friday, with Roon and the option to use the newly added S/PDIF output instead of USB.  Kudos to Antipodes for supporting existing customers with upgrades and for staying at the forefront of server technology.

I have run a few DAC's in my system and have owned the OSDE/SE.  I use a turntable still, so I need a preamp, but I, like most, wanted to hear the differences.  I have never chosen driving directly.  I lose a bit of dynamics and the sound staging can lose a bit of coherency.  

I use an Ayre AX-5/Twenty and the pre on that thing is nearly as good as the KX-R/Twenty.  I like the preamp in my system still. If someone is chasing between a preamp or running directly, I think that the consensus is a pre will sound better, but if you take that extra 10k for a pre (just throwing out a number) and throw that at a better DAC like the OSDX and Final Drives, you will never even know the difference and you will have a much better sounding system than using say the ODSE/SE with that great pre.  

That way you can get a preamp later one and upgrade the sound even more.  

So many ways to go and so many great DAC's on the market right now.  We all hear differently and this thread really shows that.  Thanks for everyone's input.  It's been a wonderful guide for many of us and is appreciated.

Schiit Yggy. Unbelievable sound and value. Use with  Sonore microrendu for streaming. Nothing will beat this at any price.

lxgreen, I'm sure the Yggy is a nice DAC, but you really need to go out and listen to the DAC's being discussed in this thread before making the statement that nothing will beat the Schitt at any price.  Sorry, but there are many in this thread alone that clobber the Schitt DAC.  Honestly, I have heard it in the same system at the same time as the Ayre Codex for 1800 and the Codex was the winner to every one of us in the store and that included the owner who bought the Codex.  I can promise you that the Empirical Audio DAC's are in a different league. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but you need to go listen to other DAC's in order to make that statement I think.  It's all good.  Glad that you love your DAC and steamer though.  That's awesome.

+1 on ctsooner's post. While many Yggdrasil owners want to believe that it's the best DAC in existence, in the real world it provides a good value but is not in the same league with some of the other uber-DACs being discussed on this thread. As long as owners are happy with it that's great, but proclaiming that no DAC at any price can beat it seems a bit optimistic.