Emm Labs DV2 versus Tambaqui

The best way is to order both for home trial and keep the one you like better. You'll hear a lot of advise about this vs that, or I heard this there and it was amazing, but none of these are apples to apples comparisons in the same room with the same equipment. Imo...first ensure what's the ambient white noise level in your listening area, THEN consider the technology and budget of the dac you want to purchase. no point buying state of the art if you live in a large city, and your room is not sound proofed or treated and you have kids running around. Or you don't actually sit down for 2 hours at a time to listen critically - at that point you are just buying status.

I had a Denafrips Terminator and my friend lent me his May Dac KTE for a couple weeks and both don't better my Tambaqui Dac.

Sorry lordmelton the Tambaqui has more resolution but, still manages to sound musical and has no digital artifacts. Much better than the other 2 Dacs.

@lordmelton  Great vinyl should sound like a great recording, studio or hall with close miking.   It won't sound like a highly reverberant hall that is so in vogue for the last 40 years.   Live acoustic music sounds great in a large venue but not so good on vinyl when recorded far from the source.   Rock benefits from close miking as well.   Two different listening environments deserve two different approaches, one for live music and the other for recorded music.   That's my opinion (and the opinion of great recording engineers from the 50's to the 80's.  

@fleschler Why would I want music to sound like vinyl? I've been listening to music for over 50 years and used to have a huge vinyl collection. Digital has now taken over vinyl by a long chalk and you are welcome to it if you want to get up and change sides every 15 mins, with all the dust, fluff, static and scratches...lol.

Real music doesn't sound like vinyl...end of.

Valve amps are unrealistic.

You have to pay real money for good tranny amps.

I am enamored with the Musetec because it's brought me to a place where as others have said they feel everything is right. A rare place to be.

Don't feel like I have to change anything and I've still got ten grand to spend on cables etc.

I won't even address the other stuff you're banging on about, it's a load of bollux.

@arafiq What is a giant killer, and what dac or dacs are the giants? I'd call something like Wadax Reference dac a giant, but dacs in realm of $10k doubful. Pricing of audio components is partly a function of business model. Where the component is designed, manufactured, marketing budget, distributor/dealer network or direct sales, profit margins. Its possible a $10k component actual manufacturing cost could be very close to another component that retails for much less. In this case the higher price component is not a giant, therefore, the lower price unit is not in fact a giant killer.

While I'd generally agree price correlates to quality in audio realm, there are enough products and logical reasons why this may not always hold true. Purchasing products based purely on price is rather like confirmation bias in regard to faulty posits.

Bottom line, direct comparison between two components in the exact same system, preferably one's own, is most valid estimation of a components relative value. Many long term reviews over long period of time in many different systems holds value as well. Price alone, at least without factoring in business models is not very good indicator of value.