Playback Designs MPD6 or Bricasti M21?

@acurus  Maybe consider asking over on WhatsBestForum as well.  Also, consider adding into your question what sound characteristics you are after and if folks can provide direct insights if either or both meet those. Maybe give folks some sense of what equipment you'd be matching them with. 

It's kind of random as I'm building a new system.  Looking at full Bricasti M25 and M21 or PBD and TBD amplification.   Probably with Joseph Audio Perspective speakers. 

I prefer resolution, dimensionality and slam but at the same time want to add in as much organic  and musical sounding as possible.   Yes I know I want best of both worlds. 

I have not heard either but researched both, the PDB is the most upgradeable sonically. It is FPGA based design done by the guy who invented the FPGA DAC design.

The Nagra DAC that I think sells for $30k-60k is using the low-end code that Andreas Koch (sp?) the PBD designer sells to third parties. He saves the good stuff for his own DACs.

Ted Smith of PS Audio learned how to create his FPGA DAC from Andreas.

I owned a SONY SCD-1 SACD player (modded) and Andreas was involved with that project. Just from that past experience alone made me buy the PBD Streamer-IF streamer with Plink and ROON READY capability. PBD's prior gen streamer

I am currently using the SPDIF of that streamer with my Benchmark DAC3B. It is a killer streamer. As good as the Lunim X1 stream and Sonore OpticalRendu fibre optic streamers. The Streamer-IF is inputting Ethernet, which I find the worst (fibre the best), but Andreas and his partner have made some magic happen in that streamer.  If he can do that with crappy Ethernet I expect greatness from his DACs.

My plan is to get a PDB Dream DAC to hook up to the Plink fibre of the Streamer-IF. Use ROON of course.

I am moving my DAC purchase to 2nd in priority since lower priced DACs are rather good these days. My top priority is to get an amp as good as my CODA #16 for my Livingroom. The new CODA SYSTEM 150 (to be released next month) is what I am targeting to pair with the PBD Dream or Edilwise DACs. The 150 amp is supposed to be a little less warm than the CODA #16 (TBD) and should match nicely with the slightly warm PDB DACs. I am using the CODA #16 in my office.

I have the M21 from Audio Acrhon in Chicago.  Audio Archon sells both Playback Designs and Bricasti so they are a good source for comparison info. Mike Kay was very helpful in making my decision.

I choose the M21 because of all the different options for playing PCM and DSD files.  I use the M21's internal streamer with ethernet. It takes up to DSD128.  For PCM there is either ladder DAC or Delta Sigma.  Most of the streaming I do is with Qobuz using Audirvana. Some music sounds better with the ladder DAC and some with Delta Sigma.  I've purchased DSD files from NativeDSD and used them with the 1 bit native DSD player.  The Jazz at the Pawnshop recording sounds almost 3D using the DSD128 file. 

Bricasti network card is a renderer and not a streamer. This means you need a Roon Core or a UPnP support player like MConnect to be able to stream music. 
I used both Mconnect and Roon with M3 and preferred Roon for both the sound and UI. Ultimately the Bricasti network renderer was not a competition for a dedicated Aurender streamer. However, it’s a nice to have that can hold you over until you get a better streamer or if you’re between streamers and want to continue to listen. It doesn’t sound bad.