I have three digital sources

Ok. If you would have said you listen mostly to rock or even more processed modern pop, rap, etc. If you are listening to well-recorded acoustic music I am indeed quite surprised.

After some thought I would say it is likely you are legally deaf.

Just kidding. My AN DAC is the kit 3.1 Signature, roughly equiv to a factory DAC 3 I believe. To me it excels in smoothness and correct timbre. I hear this most (in relation to other DACs) in horns, which are so difficult to reproduce with correct harmonic balance and integrity. I find other DACs - especially ones that don't employ the AN NOS/filterless philosophy - to without except sound a bit thin or bleached in harmonics on horns.

It's been awhile since I've compared anything else but two recent players were a Marantz SA11 (pretty good on SACD) and a Modwright Transporter.

IME most decent NOS/filterless DACs get the smoothness/naturalness and the timbre fairly correct. Where the AN DAC did better to me than any of those other NOS DACs was in micro and macro dynamics. In fact until I got it (I built it almost two years ago now) I had started to conclude that NOS, while being smooth, sounded a bit flat and lifeless. That's not the case with the AN DAC *at all*. (For example, it has thunderous and very dynamic bass, possibly partly related to the very low Z of the transformer-coupled output.)

Do you find that your Oppo player makes horns sound properly full and harmonically complete? What's the rest of your system? I see you have AN/E speakers - which are certainly great and definitely have truthful timbre.

I may well be legally deaf - certainly something going on when a 3k dac and 4k transport aren't in same league as $800 blueray player.

My other gear is decent - a 300b amp and Lamm preamp. My dac is a 2.1 kit and wondering if something is not quite right with it but there was a time when it was blowing away my other sources. One of my thoughts is to see if I can get it upgraded to 3.1 dac. Going to spend some time doing serious listening with it this weekend. The Oppo is way ahead right now on both detail and dynamics - there is meat on the bones and less so with the AN / AA combo. Maybe I have become easily seduced by detail and dynamics and am missing the truthful timbre. My father in law was a horn player so will have to pull out his favourites Miles, Dizzy and some Roy Hargrove.

I wouldn't think the differences in timbre & tone would be subtle, but color me confused. Your system sounds top-notch - just the kind of gear I like - and I'm sure you can hear.

I would certainly try replacing all the tubes. In fact my DAC is probably due for a new set too. Good thing they're all cheap.

Okay - pretty embarrassed to write about this one. Had a new set of 6922's around so opened up the dac this morning to replace my older pair and found I had a set of herbie's (I love your products most of the time) tube dampers on the 6922's. Popped in the new tubes, left the dampers off and bingo dynamics, detail, and tone galore. Will let the new tubes burn in a bit but right out of the box a big improvement - don't think it was the tubes, more likely the dampers just weren't the right thing for my dac - like the cotton is out of ears! Paul thanks for all your good feedback - think problem is solved.

David

I too had found the (I think they are herbies) dampers to damp the sound too much- making it unnatural. On different tube equipment though. Just to confirm, that IME, dampers do more harm than good- if you did not need dampers to begin with.