05-20-14: Nicotico
My first reaction was similar to Al's. If the only thing you changed was the DAC.
That was my initial reaction as well. However, in his last sentence in his original post he claims that the new DAC does a number of things better than the old DAC. This is very common, rarely is the new _____ better than the old _____ in every single category. Most times, if one likes the new unit better, it's simply a matter of the good that it does outweighs the downside.
Certainly the easiest thing to do is to allow it another couple hundred hours to burn in. This will take only a week or so running 24/7. He may find out he doesn't need different interconnects.