will
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I agree about trying to get the best front end you can work out.
With a transparent and revealing system like you are getting...I think there is nothing more important than the front end and all its parts.....If the beauty and completeness is not there, your amp and speakers won't have it. So getting the best source you can afford, and supporting it with the best cables, power, digital conversion, USB regeneration, computer or server....finding the best balance you can put together is an exploration you will not likely regret.
I have not been DAC shopping for years having been really happy with a tuned up NOS Tranquility DAC with a souped up Mini, USB cleaner, and using an external drive (firewire) on a different buss than the USB out for the DAC, even the drive chosen for musical quietness and smooth/complete sound for music files. Related, I have experienced HK's suggestions for trying different USB ports, some quieter, so more musical.
After the Tranquility I got onto a Gustard X20Pro modification cycle. The DAC got a lot of praise as it was, competing with high end DACs according to many, but with fairly simple modifications, it came into a new level, one that some said competed well with very high end analog setups and the best digital. Don't know, but I find it sounded like music, not "digital," and still do a few years later.
So I have not really been looking further, although the higher range Denafrips and Holo DAC seem to keep coming up for me. But I like what I have so much, I really can't see changing at this point.
The modified Gustard is seriously supported by a modified Singxer USB convertor (I am using usb into the Singxer SU-1 and I2S from it to DAC) and the best sounding cables I could make or get, with clean power, a very simple/quiet OS running my Mini, and player software that to me processes 44.1 uncompressed, error corrected files in as real a way as possible. Vibration mitigation is everywhere in the chain, supporting less damage to the source digital, and choices for feet were different for each part of the chain, all determined by sound. With the Tranquility I did not miss high-resolution, the 44K files sounding really good, but it was tuned for that....no upsampling....pure NOS.
Then with the Gustard, it sounds like it has been tuned for hi-resolution files and upsampling to me. From a lot of testing, I enjoy the 44k files upsampled in quality player software to 352.8K, supporting how important software and computer hardware is. If it reveals the files in ways that mess with the digital timing, and/or by adding noise, or truncating the files in any ways, it will have digital artifacts....and if not, it can sound like music! In this sheltered and limited quest it has been many years since I thought digital was brittle or damaged sounding with time or noise issues, not because there have not been problems in digital development, but because I have tried to meet those challenges with attention to refinement on all fronts that contribute to a front end. And I find they all matter if we want to utilize all that is there on a digital file....which is a lot more than many digital front ends can convey well across the full spectrum and across many recording styles.
To me the most important and easier reads are in the very fine stuff.....leading edges, complexity and completeness of detail feathering hard edges, textures, harmonic information...the space and room sounds....decays. If these subtler and more fragile parts of the signal are all fully there, and evenly across the spectrum, chances are the rest of the signal is less impaired, more complete, more natural sounding.
I think I was lucky, especially back in the day, when I had a lot of help from the developer of the Tranquility DAC, a project where every part was tested by blind testing, the goal to match good analog front ends in multiple high end setups. Not only parts, they discovered everything else mattered and approached it the same way, each cable, or computer, software, or whatever...all of it run through extensive blind testing. So I was able to glean the benefits from this serious testing by folks I almost always agree with on sound balance and the myriad qualities that make a recording sound like music.
So learning from Eric Hider, and then working with the foundation he provided, I am still learning all the time, the music a great teacher.
A tribute to the effort into design, the Tranquility, out of production for quite a while now, still Eric often has folks with high-end DACs who heard a Tranquility setup at a friends, and want Eric to set them up with the latest Tranquility DAC tuning, Mini setup, etc. From him I have also been hearing good things about the Holo ladder DACs from Kitsune, apparently a very refined DAC, especially with a little extra fine tuning. Seems the Holo flagship is now being praised by many folks as the best there is. Costly, but for the sustained levels of careful development, and for the money, still amazing by reports.
Anyway, as I look at generalized fundamentals of digital, my idea is that many folks who are still biased against digital, are limited by that bias. Thinking it is just not quite right makes it harder to get it right!
Then many often inadvertently support keeping digital down by buying gear that can't be great due to its incompleteness, "proving" that digital can't quite be great! Think about it, many hard core analog lovers simply don't go nearly as deeply into developing a digital front end as they have for their analog front ends. And in a round about way, by using digital that sounds pretty good, but can't be great by its nature, this supports a bias against digital.
Even lots of reviewers are using pretty noisy computer setups for fragile purist digital signals, like laptops with noisy displays integrated, OK, but compared to cleaner systems, limiting potential from the get go where it all begins...the digital file server.
On the other hand, there is a lot of great effort going into refined OSs, player software, and hardware to support fragile digital with the least damage. Also the resurgance for ladder DACs is now shaking things up nicely, setting new "analog" standards that more "normal" chip users are learning to compete with.... Associated, DACs like mine, with later model Saber chips that traditionally are not as musical as many would like, are being designed by innovative sound developers overseas who are joining the fray in big ways, pushing design boundaries for tech that supports not just good tech, but good sound.... So making DACs while carefully listening for the experience of music, not digital playback. The Holo seems to be in this category from what I hear. Sorry to say I have not heard it myself though, instead parroting a trusted friend's views.
Bottom line, especially with digital to analog being innately fragile, I have found consistently that every part really matters. And if well done, it can make music that is relatively undamaged, resolving, spacious, dynamic and musical...complete. I love my digital setup and how well it integrates with my system. Not totally perfect, but the whole produces some eerily real feeling sound to me, and I am pretty well blown away every time I listen, and for the whole session, amazed again and again.
Sorry for the generalizations and no real recommendations, but I thought a broader baseline story might help.
Good luck,
Will
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