Just thought I'd make another note in this thread. Since I began it I have upgraded to the SE version of this DAC and that was a nice change for the better.
Back in the AC Tranquility thread, there was a recommendation made at one point to have the DAC plugged directly into the wall. That was on the original Tranquility, and was because it supposedly did not benefit from power conditioning of any kind. Well to this day I always had it plugged into the wall, with the rest of my equipment on a separate power strip (plain strip, not the conditioning kind). But the other day, I was reading an article about ground loops and noise on the Anedio site and ran across this recommendation
"Use One Power Strip for All Components: We highly recommended that the power cords of all components be connected to a single point — usually a single surge protector with multiple outlets. This keeps all components referenced to a single point, as far as it is practically possible, thus minimizing the differences in ground potentials among the components."
from http://www.anedio.com/index.php/article/designing_a_low_noise_system
Bottom line: if you don't have all of your system plugged into one strip, TRY IT NOW. It costs almost nothing and not doing so may be significantly restraining the potential of your existing setup. I don't know if this applies to each and every system out there, but on mine, it has certainly proved true.
