So that audio club in Arizona did a test of ten DACs hooked up to some above average gear and picked some winners. This DAC came in second place. I was curious as to why and I learned that this DAC is pretty inexpensive. (Less than $700) Wally at Underwood set me up with the DAC and one of his better power cables. I have it sitting n top of my DSD and I am feeding it with a Wireworld Platinum Starlight 7 USB cable directly from my Euphony PTS server via Roon. This little guy uses vacuum tubes for its analog stage. It’s a nice little device. So it is up against the Matrix fed DSD Sr. and I gotta tell ya, it holds up nicely. The PS Audio DAC is safe, I find it to be better but it is surprisingly close.
The DSD was one of the ten tested and it did not fare to well. I blame the cabling used if I had to guess a reason. With great cables it out performs this little gem. But still, if you have a friend who just can’t see their way to spending $2000+ on DAC, this little guy is damned impressive. I also own a Chord Qutest and this guy stands up in that contest as well. Who knew?