DAC Impressions

Anyone hear Wyred for Sound, or Ayre?

I have a Wyred4Sound Dac1. It is extremely revealing and musical, especially for the price.

Drive the W4S DAC2 using I2S from the transport or I2S from a USB converter and you will discover how good this thing really is. I2S bypasses the resampling and reclocking in the Sabre chip, which is a good thing:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=112012.0

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Does the W4S DAC 2 have a tendency to be on the clinical or perhaps bright side?

Not clinical or bright if you use the I2S input from a source. Very neutral IMO.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Excuse the question - I know nothing about digital......but I assume when you download an album into the computer, you need a USB converter from the computer to change the connection from USB 1 or 2 (I have a Mac laptop) to 12S (don't know what 12S is) and then it would go into a Wyred for Sound DAC, and then into my preamp?? Thanks

another question from a I2S newbie. Is an HDMI cable the same thing?

Could one connect an OPPO player with HDMI out to the I2S input on a DAC that accepts I2S by using an HDMI cable?