I have the Mark I Octave. It has burned in for about 2 months and needs that long for the character to fully stabilize.
After ~15 years of trying to get music from CDs, I have finally found what I was looking for with this DAC. Satellite radio and CDs are quite enjoyable. I prefer this DAC to Schiit Gungnir (more detailed, but too aggressive which made us feel tense), Channel Islands Audio VDA-2 (very nice, but not as dynamic. I now feel that delta-sigma DACs are a fraud to which I fell victim for a very long time. I think that people who are trying to like delta sigma DACs have not heard this one. I cannot imagine someone preferring that other type over this for music enjoyment (I could imagine a mastering engineer using the other type). After years of trying to listen to CDs from various other sources, I thought that most CDs were just mastered poorly and were not enjoyable. It turned out that it was the DACs, not the CDs. Now, music is more relaxing, as I want it to be.
I think that this DAC also sonically gives me everything that I can get from vinyl.
The feeling of never getting the system to where I want is now gone. I believe that my journey that started 40 years ago has ended.
I do not understand why so little is written about these. I think that it has to do with a lot of mis-information or maybe choosing based on measurements rather than the sound of music.
After ~15 years of trying to get music from CDs, I have finally found what I was looking for with this DAC. Satellite radio and CDs are quite enjoyable. I prefer this DAC to Schiit Gungnir (more detailed, but too aggressive which made us feel tense), Channel Islands Audio VDA-2 (very nice, but not as dynamic. I now feel that delta-sigma DACs are a fraud to which I fell victim for a very long time. I think that people who are trying to like delta sigma DACs have not heard this one. I cannot imagine someone preferring that other type over this for music enjoyment (I could imagine a mastering engineer using the other type). After years of trying to listen to CDs from various other sources, I thought that most CDs were just mastered poorly and were not enjoyable. It turned out that it was the DACs, not the CDs. Now, music is more relaxing, as I want it to be.
I think that this DAC also sonically gives me everything that I can get from vinyl.
The feeling of never getting the system to where I want is now gone. I believe that my journey that started 40 years ago has ended.
I do not understand why so little is written about these. I think that it has to do with a lot of mis-information or maybe choosing based on measurements rather than the sound of music.
