Stay tuned - It appears that Alex Peychev of APL HiFi will be coming out with 2 standalone DAC versions based upon his highly regarded NWO 4.0 player, 1 of which supposedly will be pretty identical to what's in the Esoteric based 4.0, minus the transport.
I currently have a Denon 3910 that he modified for me last December with 4 32-bit 1st generation AKM Dac chips, Class A tubed output stage, digital input, etc. Using my UX-1Pi as a transport, it sounds better than the Esoteric's DACs plus my G-0rb rubidium clock most of the time (except on SACDs).
His new DACs supposedly are much better than the modded Denon, but I won't know until I receive mine, hopefully within a week or so. I've been waiting over 1 1/2 years for this piece to be done, and it has apparently gone though several different iterations to get to its present form, now using lots of second generation AKM 32-bit DAC chips. I will hopefully know more shortly.
I currently have a Denon 3910 that he modified for me last December with 4 32-bit 1st generation AKM Dac chips, Class A tubed output stage, digital input, etc. Using my UX-1Pi as a transport, it sounds better than the Esoteric's DACs plus my G-0rb rubidium clock most of the time (except on SACDs).
His new DACs supposedly are much better than the modded Denon, but I won't know until I receive mine, hopefully within a week or so. I've been waiting over 1 1/2 years for this piece to be done, and it has apparently gone though several different iterations to get to its present form, now using lots of second generation AKM 32-bit DAC chips. I will hopefully know more shortly.