AKM makes the best DACs

I just love all the good product reading with everyones recommendations. Really appreciate people posting about their DAC's.

I've had 5 DAC's (3 ES, 1 Wolfson, 1 Burr Brown) and enjoyed them all, but to varying degrees (presently Musetec MH-DA005, and favorite).

I am really interested in a different DAC design in the future (R2R, AKM, FPGA, etc)

Just wanted to say thanks for posts... Good reading.

D70S user here and in my system it performs well. I had a previous dac which used dual ESS chips and I liked it as well.  Prefer the D70S for music but either works well for soundtracks. 

My Hegel h160 uses an AKM chip in its' dac section which sounds great as well. In comparison to the D70S, the D70S has more bass/midbass emphasis and a bit less instrument separation and yields a bit warmer sound. The Hegel is a bit cooler, emphasizes instruments a bit more in sharpness and has a bit more treble extension. I found myself preferring one or the other depending on music. 

They are fairly close to performance but those are the differences I noticed.

The D70S is hooked up to a Keces E40 which together drive Focal 807W speakers. Also drove many other combos well including MA Silver 100s 6th Ed.

Not bad for a budget system.

PS I once had a Marantz CD 5000 which used the Philips TDA 1549 DAC.  While the stage size was smaller, the tone was just so nice. Wish I never sold it.

If there was a "best" dac....or a "best" speaker...or a "best" amplifier......what a boring hobby this would be. The word BEST should never be used in Hi-Fi discussions. :>)

Have an older AVA multibit dac and a few AKM  chip based dacs.  They are all well designed and sound nice. Dac chips are like ice cream flavors.  Sometimes you want one flavor sometimes you want another.  It's just nice to have the options.  🙂