DAC significantly better than a w4s DAC2-DSDse?

Steve --- sorry somehow I missed your response. Will your player work with Linux? Also, what's the return policy? (I searched around for awhile but seem to be missing it.)

You dont HAVE to roll tubes in the lampizator and even if you want to, on a Lampi Level 4, the typical NOS tube used would cost less than $30 delivered via Ebay. I scored some top tungsram locall for $10.

Lampi DSD is freaking awesome and I have yet to hear any PCM beat a quality DSD128 recording played back via the Chipless Lampi decoder.

That said, there are lots of choices in Dac-Land.

Lampi DSD is freaking awesome and I have yet to hear any PCM beat a quality DSD128 recording played back via the Chipless Lampi decoder.

Sure, this is the very reason I've converted to DSD and also have a proprietary PCM to DSD encoder, as well as "chip-less" DSD to Analog converter built in my reference DSD-M.

The DSD encoder can do DSD64, DSD128 and DSD256.

Funny thing is that my chip-less converter was developed pretty much at the same time with Lampi. I've have emailed Lukasz, but never heard back from him. :-)

Of course, Ed Meitner of EMM Labs has done this long time ago before anyone else, but the technology used for PCM to DSD conversion and chip-less DSD D/A converter is very important for the final sound quality. This is the reason why every such DAC example is sounding different.

All in all, as I've mentioned in the past, to my ears, and per my vinyl rig reference, the DSD is the only ticket coming close to pure analog.

Best wishes,
Alex Peychev
APL Hi-Fi