Some real good advices here!
the amplifier can change things dramatically. I personally have a Line magnetic 845 premium on cube audio nenuphar. The sound stage is bigger than my room boundaries itself! Both The back and side walls with pin point precision and separation. I have also assisted things with SR HFTs. I thought they are complete snake oil but my curiosity led me to try them and discover they can act like adjustment points on a projector screen somehow.
Also, speaker placement and amount of toe in could be crucial. This needs to be adjusted once a new amp or a new dac has been introduced.
I have heard the dave mutiple times in my system vs denafrips terminator previosuly, then against my latest dac; Rockna wavedream signature. The dave certainly can throw a sound stage outside the boundaries of speakers, i have witnessed that. But i noticed it was less in width than both terminator and rockna. However, the dave always had more depth.
After a recent comparison (have few friends who own a dave thus i get to witness such comparisons easily), its quite impressive with its depth, clarity (over all spectrum including impressive bass details), vocal separation from rest of music, but to me there is something sterile and emotion-less in the dave (dave is highly sensitive to power cord, it can literally tune it according to my friends) vs a high end r2r dac. There is no "better" here, i think its a matter of taste. My rockna is as technically capable regarding imaging /layering and 3d presentation maybe even superior, and its more dynamic for sure. more importantly its sounds more organic and real to my ears. Needless to say, the guy who owns the dave still preferred it. On the other hand, another friend with dave said my rockna has 10% more details, 20% more musical. Go figure!
The biggest challenge in our hobby is when we have to buy expensive things blind, its a good thing you got to try the dave before you buy it. Good luck making the right choice ))
