So today is day one with the Sonica Dac.
I had this sucker up an running for what I want it to do within 15 minutes. I d/l the Sonica app to my iPad. Set the Dac up to find network. I intend to stream Tidal and Spotify via AirPlay (lossless compression) vs Bluetooth (lossy) . So now my iPad is completely untethered as I lay in bed and surf. I cannot hear a difference between being hardwired via USB and AirPlay. I went back and forth for a good hour. I cannot detect any diffference. I initially set volume to "fixed" instead of "variable". It has very high output.( using se output to amp.It would be more using xlr) Too much so in my case because my Wells Audio Milo already has plenty of power output low on the volume control. So I decided to use variable output with the volume set to -20. Btw, the iPad volume control is disabled when using it with AirPlay.
The Sonica has a pretty good weight to it physically and is rether deep. It looks great. As far as sound goes vs the ess9018 Dac that was in my Burson CV2+ Amp, at this point I honestly cannot hear any thing different. It's only been a few hours so if there are any notable sound differences, I'll let you know. I'm confident that any differences between the two will be subtle. A song that I'm familiar with just may expose any differences in time.
Bottom line, I'm very happy with it. It's a real looker. Flawless setup and has a nice feel to it and is quite refined imo.
Image dark, I know.