Forte F-50A DAC

I also owned both and had the opposite opinion as Rayhall, strongly preferring the F-50A. Chalk it up to system matching, personal preferences etc. I would, however, characterize both as dated, and nothing special compared to contemporaries from other brands at their time of production. Nothing wrong with these DACs, but they won't do much to improve decent single disc players of today.

If you have a chance to listen to it, that would be the best thing to do. I am not familiar with the Sony so I can't hazard a guess.

I directly compared the F-50A to the built-in DAC of a Rega Jupiter 2000 CD player, a Bel Canto 1.1 DAC, and an Aragon D2A2 DAC, all of which I preferred over the F-50A. The F-50A had sweetness and some sparkle, but I found it ultimately lacking in body, soundstage and realism compared to the other products mentioned.

In all cases, I used the RCA outputs, so I don't know how using the balanced outs might affect the sound.