So Chameleon seems like a good choie if one like the Muse. Stumbled upon this one as well, seems like it's some kind of hybrid?? Any thoughts?
http://www.ciaudio.com/products/VDA2
Our new VDA•2 takes Digital to Analog audio conversion to a new level. Traditional DAC designs use brick-wall digital filters, usually followed by more analog filtering to reduce sampling noise, but cause signal degradation in the process. Another approach has been to use no filtering at all, but this adds noise to the analog signal. Both of these designs have their strengths and weaknesses, but neither tends to be a good trade-off. Our design uses only a mild "slow roll-off" digital filter and first order analog filter to tame the sampling noise. This architecture has reduced filtering artifacts compared to brick-wall types, and lower sampling noise than filterless types, resulting in a more "analog" sound.
Digital input signals are accepted by Toslink optical or coaxial SPDIF, then fed to the CS8416 24 bit/192k low jitter input receiver, then to the Burr Brown PCM1794 balanced/current output DAC. Our unique output stage is a fully discrete/zero feedback design and uses only a single transistor per output to insure the purity of the audio signal. Circuit board is high quality 2 oz. copper with lead-free silver solder construction.
Also
http://www.metrum-acoustics.nl/NOS_mini_DAC.html
but I can't fin dany details about the construction or chips uses. I like the switch in front of the chassis and that the cables are all on the back (which really is the main reason I look for alternatives to the muse. emailed the producer :-)
Edited by ardilla - 1/4/11 at 4:51am
