dacs that I have had in my system - a listing

forgot a couple -

tried ben zwickel’s mojo mystique v3 in 2022 (an important one)

also had the ifi neo stream in 2023

am sure i have missed a few others that i will be reminded of in time...

top three (no order of preference) - i favor dacs with some linestage/volume control capability so i can go direct to power amp, and even better if streamer is onboard, and is a smaller form factor

weiss 501 (utterly pure and incisive sound) and with so many useful sound-shaping features, and built in streamer too)

chord hugo tt2 w scaler (absolute soundstage champ, fantastically smooth but with density and with detail effortlessly portrayed) - best at driving all kinds of power amps directly due to special analog output capability of the tt2

msb analog/powerbase (older gen r2r msb -- very aptly named, sounds most akin to top notch analog -- slightly softer, sweeter, less razor-focused sound, highly musical) - has streamer onboard and separate analog input too, and prolly the best remote ever 😉

i listen to the hugo/scaler the most, i use the weiss when i feel the downstream system needs a little more zip and clearer focus, and i resort to the msb in the other case, when what is downstream is a little too unforgiving up top, needs just a touch of smoothness

I’d be curious to hear your impressions of the Van Alstine dacs. I’ve been wanting to experience one of their more recent offerings in my system at some point. Given your predilection for dacs with good output stages and attenuation, I was surprised not to see their Digital Preamplifier on the list

i really enjoy frank’s dacs... especially his older tubed output ones with have a lovely voicing and allow tube rolling

i haven’t tried his newer ones without tubes, using the akm chip, and yes you raise a good point about his digital pre, it is ’on the list’ to try eventually

What are you thoughts on the internal H590 DAC as compared to the standalone DACs you’ve tried? From your system page, it seems like you have quite a speaker collection as well. Did you find the H590 a good match for the Harbeth?

internal dac is quite good on the 390/590 -- they lean on the clear/clean side but with a good degree of saturation through the mids and very good imaging

hegels are an excellent match for the harbeths, with their even tonality and remarkable low end grip

How many hours do you actually listen to each DAC, with that kind of turnover?

back in the covid shut in days, i literally had pretty much all waking hours each day to listen ... at that time being newly retired from daily work... in the past year+, it is less of course with our return to normal activities, but still plenty... i am not a big tv watcher (mostly sports), prefer to read/listen in the evenings

dacs are set up in a/b and even a/b/c configuration, easily switchable to allow comparison when needed

Have you ever considered taking a break and trying something like the Technics SU-R1000 or SU-G700M2 which converts everything to PWM, using its own in-house conversion?

yes among the amp stack there is a lyngdorf 3400 which i believe works on the same concept as the technics units you mention, i should have added that one to the list

i don't view listening to various dacs a burden at all, it is part of the enjoyment ... there is some setup/connection overhead, then they are easy to swap, and when i listen to relax/enjoy, i can opt to a/b just for fun, or just leave it

Did you have something close to a control reference system you used to evaluate most of these or did you change speakers and amps too in parallel at times?

Have you had a standard streamer to test them with or have your tried a bunch of those also?

i will chip away at the questions my list has engendered

yes most of the time it was solid state amplification into magnepans (1.7i and 3.7i)

in the earlier period 2020/ early 21 was big harbeths or spendors with solid state (hegel, pass, musical fidelity)

i was never a computer streamer, so when i launched into this, i started with a bank of 3 bluesound node 2i’s (multiple can be sync’d through the app), then went to node 3 usb x3, then in 2021, i caved to roon, and subsequently migrated to a bank of ifi zenstreams (with lps), and then also to paralleled sets of sonore optical rendus with ether regens for lan cleansing when feeding unitized streamer/dacs

i tried other streamers against the zenstreams and o-rendu’s intermittently (lumin, auralic, innuos, pro-ject, volumio and so on)

Why do you try so many DAC’s from the same company? E.g. there are many MHDT, Schiit, Metrum, Denafrips DACs there -- why? Do they really vary so much?

when i heard a nice sounding one, i was curious to see how that company handled their model progression... i.e., when you spent more what did you get sonically? ...i was determined to hear this for myself (my overall guiding analogy is as with analog gear, you are really hearing the cartridge/arm/table mostly... so understanding performance gained up a maker’s model progression is key to finding the sweet spots in the curve ... dynavector karat to 20x2 to xx2 to tkr, and so on)

as you would imagine dave, what you get as you move up the line is different with different companies - with denafrips you get progressively more treble detail and ’openness’, with metrum you get more silky smoothness and richness, as two examples

mhdt is the exception, those dacs are not in a vertically stacked food chain, they simply use different r2r dac chips from back in the day, so my curiosity was to hear an orchid running a philips tdai1541 vs a stockholm using a burr brown pcm61k, with all else in the dac design being held constant

let me try to cover off some add’l questions posed

“dacs are set up in a/b and even a/b/c configuration, easily switchable to allow comparison when needed”

Can you share more on how your going about that and how you avoid any additional tonal coloration or distortion in the approach?
In my system I can switch between four dacs at a time from a single source with no noticeable affects (once level matched)- just curious about your approach.

i mentioned earlier using multiple parallel streamers jointly controlled by blu os, and later by roon as multiple endpoints, that is the input side to the dacs (cabling was cullen or audioquest coffee)

at the output side, depending on what i am comparing, i would use one of the reference dacs (msb, chord or weiss, each of which can adjust output volume to level match) against subject x... the dacs then output into a preamp or integrated with multiple inputs, controllable by remote -- when comparing fixed output dacs only with varying output levels (i did this earlier on) i used either a van alstine comparator which level matches, or a krell s550i which can set levels by individual input

Curious as to your answer to mahler123 given it is hard on the surface to see how many critical listening hours were given to each with these many DACs going through your system - 2020- 9; 2021 - 19; 2022 -15 ; 2023 -6.

plenty of time to listen... key to understanding the context is two plus years of strict covid lockdown, being newly retired from my real estate endeavors -- simple math -- call it conservatively 6-8 hrs a day x 350 days/year those years... if 2-3 dacs were connected and switch back and forth at will... lots and lots of hours available -- i much rather did this than stare at the tv for cnn/fox and netflix and go brain dead

other point to mention is that pretty much all these dacs were acquired used (even ben z’s mojo mystique he sent me was a customer trade-back), so break in was never an issue

What are your thoughts on the MHDTs you had in your system. I got a Stockholm v.2 about 2 years ago first DAC and really love it.

Could you tell us how the Toucan sounded relative to the Orchid?

mhdt tube buffered dacs are lovely, highly musical, small form factor dacs that allow tube rolling and also easy mods, by such a-gon community members as our own bill dion/grannyring

stock, they have a lush, rich midrange, plump, tuneful bass, with good (not great) treble inner detail -- so sonically very user friendly to traditional analog lovers -- but the magic of these little units is their ability to run better sounding 6dj8 and 6sn7 octal tubes via tube adapters, which makes their sound more extended, airy, transparent and then, with better output caps they gain needed speed and greater transient clarity without having their treble becoming overly forward and etched... among them, i liked the stockholm v2 and orchid best, but in stock form, they all sounded quite similar within a few whiskers

key takeaway for me for these dacs is that the sonic change from tube and capacitor/diode upgrades to any stock mhdt model overwhelms the sonic differences i could hear between different bone stock units (orchid vs stockholm v istanbul for instance)

the toucan is a newer model, using the 6dj8 tube natively... i don’t know exactly what jiun in taipei did here to this newer gen model, the unit has noticeably lower output voltage than its precursors (acrylic faceplate models with 2c51 tube), this one sounds even a touch more laid back, silky and ethereal than the others in stock form with jj tube... but of course, you can throw a dutch bugle boy ecc88 in there and it springs to life, with open airy treble and more snappy transients...but your downstream pre must have enough input sensitivity to run it to get sufficient output

responding to some quickies (i will take the time for more lengthy/thoughtful responses later to address some meatier questions... on mode of listening, best value dacs. how i chose dacs to try etc etc, pls bear with me)

Any comments on the Benchmark DAC3 HGC - Digital to Analog Audio Converter?

no, sorry, i did not try benchmark’s more recent dacs... though well BEFORE the 2020 timeframe i had tried their dac1 -- that was a lean/mean/super clean sounding machine as i vividly recall, consistent with the overall benchmark house sound over the years

Any thoughts on any of the Bricasti DACs?

yes, i hold them in very high regard... built with utmost quality, love and attention by brian zollner and crew, very pure tonally accurate resolving sound that takes no prisoners in treble or bass extension - i loved the m1 mdx i had, but in careful a/b vs my weiss unit i could hear ZERO difference (m1 set on my most preferred ’linear 2’ filter), and given my preference for the weiss on form factor, and features, i let the m1 go

important note here is our friend and esteemed member @tvad is a longtime and multiple bricasti user, he says the m3 is ever so slightly warmer sounding than the m1... i think this this is worth noting - i trust @tvad's ears and sensibilities 100%

Have you totalled up the total money you spent chasing the "perfect" DAC sound; Does your spouse know the figure; and where do you hide the Goose laying the golden eggs to afford this hobby?

haha, well thankfully i have had two lengthy productive careers and money is not an issue (as hifi goes as a hobby, there are indeed much more expensive ones than this), as i have said on prior posts, with my second career developing real estate i acquired property, designed/built my home, and the cost of the home (and the listening room in it) makes money spent on hifi gear insignificant

that said, i regularly check the couple used hifi gear sites, buy units of interest at fair prices, and resell them in time for same, usually at zero or close to zero cost to try... like everything in life money-wise, there are smart and not so smart ways, provided one is willing to expend energy and effort

BTW, was going from 2ch to 4ch with the Weiss DAC501 worthwhile?

for purely sonic reasons, no, imo

@soix

well you know me... i knew what i was doing when i chose to post the list, and i don’t mind the consequences 🤣

part of my motivation, frankly, is to establish a thread and a dialogue that puts this forum back into its proper (and positive) comfort zone -- dedicated and interested music lovers and audiophiles sharing experiences and info, without the b-s and negativity

i know my example with dacs here is extreme, but hopefully it helps reset the tone and nature of discourse here, at least on this thread

Why do you think Magenpans could provide you with the best judgment about DAC’s compared to comparing them using other speakers?

because when properly set up and properly driven, they are among the most honest, pure, transparent transducers out there, letting you hear quite precisely what is being fed to them with very minimal editorialization, for better or worse

Do you think that your conclusions, made with the Maggies, could apply, ceteris paribus, to very different kinds of speakers?

yes absolutely (once again, with the critical caveat that said speakers are set up to perform properly in room)

over this period, i would on occasion swap the harbeths, spendors and proacs back in, just for fun... doing so didn’t change my takeaways about the dacs i was using... other than preferring a little more treble energy for the harbeths, and touch less for the proacs or spendors

I did not really understand what sound you were looking for to select a DAC. Many DACs you tried were of the same design.

when i started out in jan 2020, i wanted to see what streaming was about, get it working, see how good it might sound

my existing references were my analog rig and my cd players, which were/are modwright modded sony es and marantz units with dan’s 5687 tube output stage and 5ar4 tube rectifier (quite high sonic standard, in my view)

like many, i went with the bluesound node first with its nice user interface, but the onboard dac sounded lifeless, so i read and watched yt vids re ’good’ dacs under or around a grand, and made a list of candidates - so this was a semi random walk at that point, surveying the field... chord 2qute, mhdt, ayre codex, pontus, rme adi2, lil schiits and so on -- these pretty much all sounded much better than the node dac... but quite noticeably different from each other, with sonic strengths and weaknesses

going through those, i was well on the horse so to speak, curiosity intensified, so started going to more expensive ones, either well reviewed or discussed, and so up the lines for chord, denafrips, metrum, schiit etc etc to understand the progressions as well as some other ’hot’ dacs (audio mirror, musical paradise....)

by 2022 i had heard some very expensive ones and several purported giant killers (by and large NOT, for those with well assembled, resolving systems) and i was getting a good appreciation of what going to $3-4-5-6 grand units got you sonically, buildwise, feature wise

i learned that in the modern dac world, there are clearly two sonic camps (clean crisp clear vs smooth and sweet ... with some in middle ground), somewhat analogous to the age old prototypical ’solid state vs tube’ sensibilities, but interestingly, each camp could handle imaging, prat, transient resolution and micro detail quite differently (for example an mhdt orchid with a better tube in it was much better than a border patrol at micro detail and transient resolution, even though both are in the ’smooth/sweet’ camp)

by middle of last year, i had settled on my top tier, the weiss, chord stack and msb analog as keepers, and beyond that, i have just continued playing with/trying less costly newcomers that are highly touted (gustard r26, denafrips revisions, musetec, eversolo and so on) as ’high value/giant killer’ units, just to hear for myself how good they are, and how close to my top tier they come

If I may ask, and not that it was necessary nor do I know of your past setups, by chance were any high efficiency 100db horn type speakers with low watt tube amps used around the time you were testing these dacs?

@decooney i did not... long long story with my efforts over the decades trying to find a high efficiency speaker i can truly live with long term ...but despite my efforts, i continue to strike out after so so many at bats... just too much transducer distortion for my ears in some form, in each case

but hope springs eternal, i still keep my pair of wavelength cardinals and a cary 300b sei around, in case lightning strikes!! 😆🤣

Would you mind commenting on the differences between two units still in your possession, the Weiss DAC501-4ch and the Chord Electronics Hugo TT2 / M Scaler combo that are in the same price range?

tonally, the scaler/hugo tt2 sounds very very similar to the weiss, they both have extended airy detailed treble, a nicely saturated, well textured midrange, true tone/timbre, and powerful quick deep tuneful bass

in terms of imaging, the scaler/tt2 has similar image density and width but slightly greater depth (in terms of depth of stage think of the weiss as an ’8’ and the chord stack as a ’9/10’ -- both delineate instruments quite precisely -- on excellent recordings, one can hear the treble of the chord stack has a touch more sheen, silkiness, more ambiance decay, whereas the weiss is a little more matter-of-fact

the sonic differences are quite slight between the two... i would think most would judge them as pretty much identical

this said, each has certain tricks up their respective sleeves... weiss has numerous useful eq and importantly, a brilliantly easy to use room bass mode adjustment (quite transformative of sound in some situations) and the tt2 has 4 filter settings to dial down the treble if one desires, and of course, the scaler can be used separately to upsample into other dacs too if ever desired

sidebar: i have come to firmly believe that upsampling really helps dacs do good filtering and analog signal reconstruction, and this helps dacs sound more natural and manage sibilance

I guess since I’m in the market to replace my Chord Qutest after 5-happy years of ownership I’d be curious what are your fav $1500 to $3200 DACs might be.

if you have been a very happy qutest user, i would heartily suggest moving up to a hugo tt2 -- they are in the $3500 used range now...tt2 preserves all the strengths of the qutest but adds even greater subtlety and saturation to the sonic palette -- otherwise, you can write more about your system, what sonic presentation and features you prefer and i can share additional thoughts

You could make a DAC review channel with short videos. Many people don’t need to buy a new DAC every 6 months and just watch your videos. Alex/Wavetouch

haha, not really interested, i am somewhat camera shy 😂🤣 , not to mention i am rather turned off by the yt click-bait game -- what i am is a loyal, longtime a-gon member, been here from the start, learned so much here over the years from other dedicated audiophiles who generously shared their experiences and learnings (especially re analog), so at this point, i am happy to pay it back now to others, feel zero need to monetize my opinions/experience

I wonder if your final 3 would have changed if did not have a preference for a volume control?

this is a fair question, which deserves a thoughtful answer... this and the earlier question about ’best bang for buck’ dacs... i am in a busy stretch with summer family/visitors events next several days, i will try to provide proper replies sometime next week

I really like the sound stage depth and the separation between instruments the Qutest provides. As for what I want to get from something else is really more of the same with a sense of ease and realism

if you really mean what you wrote here the hugo tt2 will certainly meet your criteria -- but i sense you want to travel a little farther afield from chord, which is fine, all part of the experience/journey -- i would only say that once you get used to what the qutest/tt2 brings sonically, many (if not a majority of) other dacs may sound a little slow, a bit closed in, a little muddled and slurred -- in some cases cabling or cleaning up the front end feed may 'close that gap'

On my list of possible replacements for the Qutest is Holo Audio Spring3 KTE, the Weiss DAC 204, Denefrips Pontus II, and maybe Gustard R26. I'm interested in R2R because I've not heard one,  The Spring and the Weiss are at the top of my list.

just quick comment on the above statement, which i had missed earlier

the weiss units are not r2r topology - they are based on the ess sabre delta-sigma dac chips

let me come back and tackle some important queries posed...

I wonder if your final 3 would have changed if did not have a preference for a volume control?

for fixed output dacs, i would put a few i have had in the same sonic league (or very close) as my favorite three already covered, i could easily live with any of these sonically - i will make a few comments on the sonics of each

-- audio note kits dac 4.1 -- for a tube dac, very saturated and surprisingly spotlit sound, rather forward treble and excellent drive, to go along with terrific imaging... did note just a touch of sibilance and splashiness, but this likely cured with carefully tube rolling

-- mojo mystique v3 -- very sweet, delicate, analog sounding unit, maybe a touch lacking in drive and the last degree of inner detail -- i feel my msb analog dac has a very similar highly musical presentation but with somewhat superior imaging and drive

-- metrum pavane/adagio -- in my view, still cees ruitjenberg’s best efforts (including his later sonnet morpheus, which i did not like) -- utterly smooth rich yet detailed incisive sound, saturated and tonally accurate but plenty of drive when called for

-- bricasti m1 mdx as mentioned earlier (sonically a weiss clone to my ears)

I am also interested in getting your opinions on what are the best value Dacs among the ones you have tried.

in their respective price ranges, i would nominate the following

-- denafrips pontus/venus -- rich midband and midbass, coupled with a vast layered soundstage... very hard to beat in the $1500-low 2’s (be sure to listen in oversampling mode) -- pontus has just a fine grain thru with the upper mids/lower treble that the venus smooths out

-- mhdt tube buffered dacs (ideally with upgraded tube and output caps) -- sweet rich yet sufficiently insightful sound, very analog tonality but with pretty good drive -- hard to beat in the $1000-1500 range -- definitely in the sweeter smoother school and great for systems with klipsches tektons focals b&w’s i think -- walks you back from the bleeding raspy edge

-- chord qutest -- yang to the mhdt’s yin under $1500-- open detailed fast simply holographic, maybe a touch lean but will breathe life and insight into many systems (harbeths, vandys and so on)

-- gustard r26 -- so impressed with this $1500 streamer/r2r dac -- sounds like a good schiit yggy (lively detailed top, but sweet warm mids, great tone) with a roon ready streamer to boot (wow!) -- since i started this quest i considered gustard/matrix/smsl as lowest common denominator guangdong swill, but this one really surprised me with its really excellent sound and full feature set

-- the cambridge cxn v2 with modwright tube output mods -- $2000-2500 unit with full streamer preamp and oversampling dac using real deal modwright 6dj8 tube output stage (not just a tube buffer) -- tremendous sound (think of it as an audio note 4.1 lite) and full feature set -- dan wright’s tube designs have always sounded so right to me (awful pun, i know 😂)

-- finally, for an older/used dac, i would heartily recommend the musical fidelity trivista 21 -- wonderful sound, tube goodness with sweetness with insightfulness up top and excellent drive and bass foundation -- these are seen used not much over a grand, they are excellent sounding

@tksteingraber

Because of your analysis I picked up a Gustard r26 with an Audio Magic M-1 fuse. Wow this Dac blew me away. I am hearing things I have never heard before in a very nice black background. Very pleased with my purchase and the price is crazy for this performance.

glad you are enjoying the gustard 👍... simply an incredible value and wonderful performance in any absolute sense

@stuartk

So when can we expect to dee your detailed comments assessing the sonic attributes/deficiencies of each unit on your list? ;o)

maybe sometime this winter when weather outside is poor and i get really bored 😁... thankfully i have been a reasonably organized note taker over this journey, so it will not be too difficult to remind myself the sonic experiences -- what i have tried to do so far here in this thread is answer specific queries as they arise... that seems to be working okay thus far

The Cambridge cxn v2 modded by ModWright is so easy to listen to but I feel it lacks some detail.

i love my modwrighted cxn v2 for its ability to tube roll and thusly materially shape its sonic attributes, as dan uses the 6dj8 pair directly in its analog output gain stage (not just as a buffer) -- i found no lack to detail, even if the tubed nature of the sound steps back the low mid and treble a touch compared to classic solid state output dacs -- to my ears, this unit loves old stock dutch amperexes, hungarian tungsrams and german siemens tubes -- wonderful sheen and great air and openness to the sound that reminds us of what tube magic is all about

Picked up a Rockna Wavelight back in March and am very happy with it. Replaced a Chord Qutest in my main rig. Nothing wrong with the Qutest, but the Wavelight is just in another league, which given the price differential it should be. Very natural and warm presentation. Soundstage is both wide and deep. Highly resolving. Lots of inner detail, but not in your face.

i have not tried a rockna, though by reputation i know they are excellent, very ’analog’ sounding dacs -- i would just remind folks of the two schools of dac sound, and the chord qutest is a prime, excellent example of the clear and crisp school -- vast imaging and precise, wonderful delineation of elements in the image...

also i find the qutest especially benefits from a linear power supply (in spite of rob watts’ insistence that it doesn’t/won’t)

Where does the Gustard R26 falls in the below $2,000 range? What would be your top choice in that segment?

r26 is excellent, a top candidate in its price range, especially in light of its all-in-one feature set ... streamer (i use roon) is excellent though i felt using it as a preamp with its internally adjustable volume slightly diminished the quality of the sound - definitely a top choice for excellent all around sound with a clear open top end without bringing the treble too prominently forward

a softer sweeter rounder sound would be gotten from a modded mhdt tube buffered dac, and an even more incisive, more holographic sound can be had with a chord qutest, although that also brings a slightly leaner midband - all this depends on system synergy for what would be ’best’ for an particular user

I would love your comparison between it and the better Denafrips units you’ve tried. How does the resolution, micro-detail, and bass compare?

i used the ank 4.1 le with stock tube set, i was surprised by its quite energetic presentation, with an open somewhat forward treble... resolution was very good, on par with a denafrips pontus but not quite as a clean as a venus 2, to my ear, and the ank had a bit higher noise floor (rca outs vs xlr from denafrips) .. mids and midbass on all were magical though deep bass tunefulness is superior on the denafrips

my issues with the ank was (mainly) its huge form factor (it is a really big box, i just did not want that long term) and the fact that its input card is limited and cannot handle higher res content (it sounded very nice on all music it played, this was a futureproofing thing for me, as i thought about it at the time)

if one commits to this unit, i suspect one can roll tubes to further improve its sound signature, if not its slightly higher noise floor, but i never got that far, as much as i thoroughly enjoyed how it presented the music

How did you like the Eversolo master edition?

Have you ever tried a Benchmark 3?

haven’t tried a current benchmark dac since this wave of dac trials starting 2020... last was a model 1 many years back... definitely a clear clean lean sonic character iirc

eversolo master is a very nice high value piece, dac section to my ear is classic ess sabre sound, forward (but quite clean) treble, clean/clear midrange, slightly dry bass but excellent transient resolution overall, somewhat narrowed and foreshortened soundstage compared to higher level units -- that said, for the price it may be all that many would need in good, mid level audiophile systems

Did you feel one outperformed the other sonically?

Were there any areas where the ANK exceeded the performance of the Pontus/Venus?

If you were to recommend one on its sonic performance alone, which would it be?

on sonic performance alone i think the venus is superior overall to both the pontus and ank 4.1, by a slim margin

the pontus comparatively has greater midband warmth but this to my ear comes from a slightly recessed and smeared treble and a greater sense of fine grain in the mids you get with the pontus... you don’t hear this delta till you compare the two side by side

vs the ank the solid state output stages of the denafrips defines bass better, more solid, less overhang while the sense of imaging is equal (a real coup for the dena models, imo) as well providing a lower noise floor, and thus microdetail is a touch better - one can argue the ank gives more ’air’ around the bass notes (think audio research tube amp bass versus hegel solid state bass) but i prefer a more tight deep neutral bass presentation

once again the key caveat here is i did not get into rolling tubes in the ank, and with effort here, there may be more sonic upside to the ank unit than how i heard it

So the notion that RME ADI-2 Pro is clean and German, and gets out of the way, and we don’t need (and shouldn’t need) anything more from a DAC.. is it not true?

it depends, in my view

yes it is clean sounding, yes it is german made, but whether it totally ’gets out of the way’ is a rather subjective thing... for a very good system set up that capably extracts and renders spatial info from recordings, the rme in my experience is lacking... its soundstage is foreshortened and narrowed... one quick a/b versus say, a chord qutest, exposes this notable weakness of the rme 

this is why i feel the rme is ideal for headphone listeners, much more than those with good in-room setups that seek to recreate realistic imaging, layering and decay of notes

I have been thinking about the Toucan and the new Oolong which is similar to the pagoda which uses the upgraded PCM 1704 k graded chip and takes AES input. Your thoughts would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Toucan is very nice. Definitely a similar family sound as the Orchid and Stockholm with the benefit of a better case and of course, native 6dj8 tube buffering. The analog output voltage is a touch lower than the other units using the 5670/2c51 mini tube though, so make sure your downstream gear has enough gain or a good buffer stage. The sound is what you would expect from Juin’s better DACs and can be further improved through output caps upgrade for extension at the extremes and a touch more drive.

@drubin 

i have not

the 204 is the core dac in the 501/502 (minus the manifold dsp features and streaming front end), so i don't see the point in trying it given i have the 501