DAC nuances

If you don’t care about rez above red book, find an old Scott Nixon Tube DAC. 

"Blessed is the one who owns an Esoteric DAC or CD player. There’s no need to debate how good it is—it’s a device that will last a lifetime."

Cheers Dirk, I do enjoy the Esoteric CD player/DAC combination. Scratching the old Audiophile itch of, "There must be someway to squeeze more sound" out this system can be both time consuming and costly (but fun too).

@jjss49 +1 "newer isn’t always better"

Typical pattern of product design flow:

1) attack key technical problem with new product design. declare “victory”, employ marketing forces to spread success. 

2) fire highly paid designers, since design already productized.

3) take successful product, and start to chop features, compromise performance to gain margins. gained money distribute among company administrators sales+marketing folks, no cake for you, doers!

4) spend more money to introduce newer, cheaper to manufacture product, to market, shows, magazines paid events/actions. increase price, if demand is increased.  

I do think new DACs are better than old. I used to own the Sony SCD-1 SACD player that was modded by Vacuum State to Level 5+. It was a spectacular sounding player on SACD (OK on CD's). The player died a few years ago after about 20 years.

However, 2 newer DACs playing the same SACD's using a $200 Oppo transport + GeerFAB D.BOB (for DSD out) + new DAC connected via SPDIF, were way more detailed and more realistic to live sound. The Sony was really fun to listen to but in comparison to the newer DACs everything was smaller, less detailed, and artificially warm.

The 2 DACs that worked with the D.BOB for DoP (DSD over PCM) on SPDIF were the Meitner MA3i and a 10-year-old RME DAC. The Meitner was the best I have ever heard my SACDs sound.

Unfortunately, my imersiv D-1 DAC cannot do DoP on SPDIF and I cannot play my SACD's on the imersiv D-1. However, if I could I think it would be the best I would have heard on SACD.

The Meitner MA3i and the inversiv D-1 are much for engaging that the old DACs. You hear more of the music and the imersiv D-1 takes you to the performance. The Sony sounded great but never transported you to the performance. The MA3i also does some of that. The RME does not do it to the level of the MA3i and D-1, but it is not bad at all. I was planning on using the RME DAC that I got for free until I sell my CODA #16 amp. Then buy the MA3i (I own the D-1) but the RME is rather good in my small office system, and I may just pocket the money.

@yyzsantabarbara yeah the Meitner MA3i is excellent. It balances musicality and detail retrieval. It’s the DAC I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend.