Just Get A Better DAC?

When it came to upgrading the DAC/streaming side of my system, I was moving from a Roon playout chain of an Intel Mac Mini, running Roon and HQPlayer to a Gustard A26 over the network connection. That in turn had been an upgrade from lossless iTunes playout via a Pi-based streamer to an elderly Linn DAC/processor. 

I looked at (and even built) assorted streamer/DAC combinations. Streamers like the Auralic range did make a small but noticeable difference with DACs which had built-in streaming, such as the dCS Bartok and Teac UD-701N, and worked well with the Chord DAVE. 

In the end though, I found a DAC which, by virtue of the means by which it handles incoming signals, has proven robustly agnostic to how it’s fed: the Mola Mola Tambaqui. For the price, it delivered better results than any DAC/streamer combination I auditioned. What has helped was the removal of analogue noise through the optical isolation of my system from the wider LAN and of the DAC from the rest of the playout chain with an Uptone EtherRegen. I’m now just integrating Qobuz and Tidal via an M1 Mac Mini Roon server, with HQPlayer not being relevant to this setup.

@audiomirror 

”In your scenario you use DDC to convert USB to I2S, but you are forgetting that DDC re-clocks the signal, while feeding directly to USB input you don’t re-clock.”

Are you suggesting that with the Audiomirror DACs, it is better not to reclock first by running the output of a streamer through a DDC prior to sending the signal to the DAC?

So SW1X states on website R2R NOS superior to delta sigma and R2R oversampling modes or R2R dac employing external reclocking devices. This because of noise shaping and digital filtering employed by such devices. While this may or not be true for their own dacs, this not a universal. Delta sigma, R2R in OS modes and reclocking devices employed with R2R are favored by many. 

I was a vinyl guy for nearly 40 years with a SOTA vacuum TT and an excellent tone arm and a Dynavector 20x2 cartridge.  None of the several sub-$1K dacs owned could match the fidelity of my analogy playback... until I bought a Ayre QB-9 dac about 10 years ago. Within a week of getting the dac, I sold the analogue rig and have never, even for a moment, looked back.  

I upgraded to the Ayre Codex, which was a sideways move.  Then I got an Aqua La Voce dac which I thought was a pleasant, but not honestly a very noticeable  improvement in SQ.  Last year, I bought a Gustard U18 DDC for the hell of it and I kinda think it yield some degree of SQ improvement but I can't say for sure.  

I got the well lauded Laiv dac and its performance, after a couple of weeks of run in, was indistinguishable from the sound in my system with my Aqua La Voce dac. 

You can view in two different ways.  The Laiv dac matched the performance of my Aqua DAC, and the Aqua dac was far more expensive.  But, given my listening comparison, I was certainly not inclined to keep it so I returned it and remember nothing about restocking fees being so punitive.   It is a stellar dac, but with their current restocking fee, I'd be dubious about trying one. 

 I heard the Topping D90SE dac in a friend's system and was super impressed with it so I came back and we compared my Aqua DAC to his Topping Dac and to both of our 70 year old ears, the delta in SQ was far too narrow to draw any conclusions -- both sounded outstanding, analogue-like.  

Yes, my Gustard, at the margin, seems to yield a quieter background, but honestly, I am doubtful that I could discern its benefit in an A/B test.  

A well-designed dac I think ought to allay the need for a DDC.  And now that musical performance can be had in several dacs for under $1K.  Cheers.