DAC significantly better than a w4s DAC2-DSDse?

Re: no pre-amp. Steve N: How do you handle volume control? Do you throw away bits to lower volume or do you attenuate the analog signal? Has anyone done an A/B of your DAC against a good pre at low listening levels?

I initially bought the w4s to use w/o a pre, but it discards bits to lower the volume. Music (to my ear) sounded better at quiet listening with the pass. But no guarantees it wasn't the placebo effect.

ZD542: I found configuring linux for bit-perfect relatively straightfoward for older versions of linux, where the machine was dedicated to just serving music. There are many threads on doing so if you search for "bit-perfect audio linux". The main high bit is to use mpd and configure it so send bits raw to the USB dac.

With that said, I tried to configure things w/o mpd on a multi-use linux and just managed to screw up the box. (This is probably b/c I removed pulseaudio and then messed up various configurations.)

I'm about to build a "silent" server that uses an SSD disk and no fan, so will have to reconfig everything again, so can let you know how that goes.

I heard lots of DSD at the Newport Beach show last week. We compared the same track, 44.1 PCM versus DSD. Namely track 1 from Kind of Blue. Sorry, but my PCM beat it.

There are so many PCM and DSD DACs, all sounding quite different. I've been doing PCM for the last 20 + years, including DSD converted to PCM. But recent vinyl developments clearly showed that such pure analog sound is quite impossible to beat with PCM, so this is the reason for DSD processing. :-)

My comment was specifically about my volume control technology. Beats 99% of preamps out there.

Beating 99% of the preamps is tricky, especially when you use the Vref of the DAC to adjust the volume. Namely, anything 0.5V below Vcc results in rather compromised DAC chip specifications. Been there done that. :-)

Best wishes,
Alex Peychev

Other than from a manufacturer promoting his own product you've not actually bitten an answer. W4S gear is top notch- if you like what you hear go for another one

Other than from a manufacturer promoting his own product you've not actually bitten an answer. W4S gear is top notch- if you like what you hear go for another one

Agreed, and W4S is indeed a great value for its price range! However, I do believe that Dddrrreee can find a better performer with his $8K budget.

There are some great DAC contenders in this Audiogon thread, so this might be a useful information.

Best wishes,
Alex Peychev
APL Hi-Fi