Drubin: your list is appropriate and comparable to the DS in many ways. Actually a much more appropriate comparison list then the one I created. I actually have a friend who might bring his Meitner MA-1 for me to try as well.
My goal is to audition higher level dac's that are sort of catering to red book and 16/44 files, not DSD or up sampled PCM. Most on my list are between $8K and $10k . I want to see if the DS can truly compete with bigger guns, as Paul M from PS Audio claims . In an interview, he said that his DS compared favorably (read "sounded better") then a $30K DAC they tried in their listening room.
I'll share my findings happily
Out of curiosity, how many songs do you guys usually use for your gear comparisons? I have a song list on Amarra with 15-20 songs and I actually think its too many truthfully. I'm thinking 5 well chosen songs would be much more effective Considering my 20 songs take about 2 hours to listen to, I find that my brain doesn't have the capacity to remember specific nuances of an earlier song by the time the later songs come .
