My main is SS targeting engagement, neutrality, and low noise floor.
2 other DAC companies I find interesting and tempting:
- Lampizator - tubes with sound described as holographic. TOL competes with the best DACs. Maybe try a Baltic someday.
- Lejonklou HiFi - opposite of ASR measurements, the designer deeply obsessively listens ALL components when designing components. Stereophile Alex Halberstadt is a die hard tube guy who greatly dislikes the sound of SS and greatly dislikes lossy audio files “And lossy, sub-CD-resolution files are to be avoided like a case of shingles.” He was gobsmacked on how great and involving Kalla+Spotify sounded. Also just recently, AH tested an assortment of Lejonklou components in an audio chain (integrate, streamer-DAC, phono) and it was maybe the first SS that he liked.

