The short answer is, wait until NYD and don’t worry about it in between. Does it sound good out of the box? Why are you not putting it into the main system, and how are you able to judge it at all without connecting the outputs to something? I would start there. Do some run in by listening to it.
The long answer is much harder and more fraught. If you are not like Amsco and Waymanchen (and I’m assuming you’re not, otherwise you would not have posted) you need to continue running it in and see if either it and/or your view of it burns in.
It depends on a number of things. I think if you’re coming from something that is very different - either it is not in this class of device (in either direction), or it had a very different type of sound, etc., the adjustment can be fairly extreme. And perhaps the synergy with the rest of the system was tailored around that prior DAC’s sound.
This is another question - are you willing to change the system (or at least the wires) to adapt to this device, or do you feel it should “just sound better”? (a perfectly reasonable feeling to have) I’ve struggled with that a lot - most recently with Windom. I went back to Snowmass. Which reminds me of one of the benefits of the DS’s - whatever it is loaded with, you should try the other of those two FWs. At least.
The other side of the coin from a couple of paragraphs back is if you’re coming from a DAC where this is not a significant enough difference from that one to justify the expense. So some of your impressions and associated gear could be helpful in understanding what is leading to your being unsure about it.
I recently got a Senior (a “DSD”, technically - there is no “Senior”), coming from a Junior, and I found that not entirely clear cut. I could tell it was more refined-sounding, more resolving and so on, but I was also dealing with a LOT of other changes to the system, making it hard to know what was what. Then that same week Windom dropped, and that REALLY confused things.
I really LIKE the Jr. I kept it and put it in a 2nd system. Still like it. It is a great DAC, and a different DAC, not simply the “Jr.” of the DSD, IMO.
Anyhow - my impression was that the sound improved significantly in about a week of running it in most of the time. I frankly have no way of knowing if it has “continued to burn in” since then, as so many other things have changed and there has been so much time in between.
I’m a bit leery of anyone who does not own two or more of them talking about how it sounded at Hour 100 vs. Hour 1000. To truly know that difference, they would’ve had to buy two, confirm that they sounded the same out of the box, then left the 2nd unit off until x hours had passed and then compared them again.
