Advice for a DAC

[loctorwabbit]

Crickey! That list of DACs will take some wading thru indeed!

My experience in a search for a possible replacement DAC for my AMRDP777 ended up in a standstill.

I will list each one and my simple brief impressions. please forgive the generalisations and amateurishly simplistic adjectives i've used as they are just my impressions of each, having spent at least 3 days listening to each one(except the ps audio where the local dealer charged a transport fee to deliver it to the house for an audition of an hour and a bit after warming up . http://www.audioaficionado.org/image...s/confused.gif )

1. AMR DP777: superb for my kind of music. vocals, jazz, blues and chamber music. lush, warm, very palpable and not at all clinical.
2. CD9: similar character to DP777, but a wider soundstage, darker backgrounds, much more involving and overall felt like a significant upgrade to the DP777. It would have been the one to replace, sans the price, age and lack of DSD. Its essentially 3 -4 times the price of the DP777 although it comes with a very lovely sounding CD player.
3. Aesthetix romulus signature: i was quite startled by the ambience of the music that it created. While there was more clarity and resolution than my AMR, as expected of a dac that price, it was the sound stage that was the most impressive. (best bloom and staging of all the DACs i'd ever tried.) wide beyond the speakers and at least half times wider than the cd9 on AB comparison. it was just abit more clinical and less warm than the CD9 for my kind of music. It was nevertheless very impressive. similar price range to CD9. It also played DSD natively. My goodness if it had the beguiling character of the CD9 with its other positive traits, it'd be an amazing DAC. The Romulus' CD player exhibited similar characteristics to the DAC.
4. I'll group PS audio's direct stream and devialet 200. The sounds are just (for want of a better word) opposite, to the AMR and CD9. Technically, they both have very good resolution, pace, staging, imaging. Devialet was better by far, warmer of the 2, and of course was an all in one dac/integrated amp. It was very impressive in itself and its speaker active matching was something that was very effective in extending the bass. But my search was more for the warm lushy tubey sound that matched my kind of music. and it didnt do so.


So there you have it. The AMR still stood on its own for tube like sound that i enjoyed for vocals and jazz instruments. As i already owned it, there was very little push to sell it for the CD9 until an improved version appeared.
I do wonder if the romulus might have achieved a more lush sound if its tubes were changed. It would be the winner.