Audio Note DAC 5 Special / Signature v the rest of high end?


http://www.incredibledesign.co.uk/DAC5_2.jpeg

http://www.incredibledesign.co.uk/DAC5_1.jpeg
I have long been a fanboy of Audio Note UK digital products, and also used to own some of their SET and Pre-Amplifiers as well. I have the DAC 5 Special which in V2 form Audio Note has almost left unchanged for the last 6-8 years i.e. very close to the current unit. This is not a bad thing as it does sound fantastic. But the digital world moves on apace so:

My question
Has anyone out there compared the DAC 5 to a current (more modern) alternative such as MSB, dCS, Lampizator or TotalDAC (for example)? The DAC 5 is R-2R and non oversampling so I guess it makes sense to try and compare to that type of DAC architecture.

Any insight would be great guys!
sunseekerespana

Showing 1 response by ahendler

Not heard the Dac5. Owned the  Audionote Dac 2.1b. Liked it a lot. Bought another R2R nos dac, the Audio-GD Master 7 which is much better than the Audio Note
Alan