Consolidate/sell my headphone system for a DCS Bartok?


Right now I’ve got a PS Audio Directstream DAC, a couple of great headphone amps: Audeze The King and LTA MZ3, plus Shunyata Denali v2 and an Innuos Zenith MK3 on the way. I’ve decided that the PS Audio is just a bit too mushy and reserved in sound quality, and I would like to simplify my setup, and probably get into network/streaming audio. With the Directstream I have a Matrix X-SPDIF2+Wireworld Platinum Starlight 7 HDMI for I2S. 

I trust that the Bartok is the better DAC here, but considering how good my headphone amps are I’m wondering if it’s possible that the PS Audio +The King or MZ3 could beat the Bartok headphone out? 

Another option is to get a Luminary’s X1 and keep one of the headphone amps, but the simpler the setup, the better. To have just the DAC, Innuos, and Denali, and ethernet to the wall would be ideal.

Unfortunately in pandemic times I can’t audition anything in person. Thoughts?
ianb52
Ian, Forgive me about Grans and Sucking eggs but have you inverted the phase on the DS a few times to see if that made a difference.
What does that do? 

I've inverted the phase and back before, but I just left it at "In" which seemed ok.
Ianb52 Have you listened to the Bartok in a system or any of the DCS components  ? ...I think your wishing your PS Audio , King or MZ3 or even some other combination would equal or beat the DCS , the Bartok is in totally different level of performance over the PS Audio dac including many other middle of the road components like this. It has little to do with the price differences over other one box much more affordable components and or combinations of like your thoughts.
As you must be well aware $20,000.00 for the Bartok is a pretty big step from your current components , the Bartok being a single box solution you should have not purchased the Innuos streamer /server 
Something else to consider with a purchase of a component like the Bartok are other components plugged into it should be of equal sonic merit and most importantly a choice library of much as you can well recorded uncompressed music .

Finally you may also consider a Innuos Phoenix to pair with your sone to arrive Innuos Zenith, that single component add on will definitely give a boost in performance with your current components. 




I’m not so much wishing that my current setup beats the Bartok, as I am hoping I wouldn’t be wasting money, mostly on account of the headphone amp quality. If you say the DAC and HP are both of better quality, then great.

I’m way more into playing my own high res files than I am streaming. It seems like in this case the Innuos still sounds better than using a cheap commercial NAS for my music, but honestly when I did my research I couldn’t find much useful information about it because I think most people just use streaming all the time. I’d love to not need another component, but I’ve got to store my music on something so it’s either the Innuos or whatever they’ve got at Newegg.

Bartok with headphone amp is actually $16,250 so selling my other stuff can fund quite a bit of the cost. I am considering the Phoenix, but in a universe where I got with Bartok and a network setup I would probably be looking at the upcoming Innuos ethernet regenerator instead.
If you add up the cost of a brand new Directstream DAC, Audeze The King, and 4tb Zenith MK3 and nice cables like I have, the Bartok is actually cheaper. 

If it actually does sound significantly better than my total setup and does NOT require a server like the Innuos, then it is a really good deal.