Superb review! Really enjoyed it. Certainly a name to look out for. Any plans on reviewing the PS Audio Directstream?

Thanks for the detailed review! I look forward to trying this out against the Mytek.

I wonder how this will sound up against the Gungnir by Shiit audio??

Thanks everyone! I may check out the DirectStream one of these days but it's not planned for the immediate future. As for Mytek and Gugnir, I personally would choose the Questyle first, by a good margin, then the Schiit and lastly the Mytek.  

Is the Questyle twice the money better than the Gugnir?

Twice the money? That's a tough question and never really easy to answer definitively. If your system is resolving enough then it could certainly be worth the extra enjoyment you get from the CAS192D. Personally, I find the Gugnir kinda shouty and aggressive at times. In some systems that translates to not only half as enjoyable, but actually not very enjoyable at all, period. So..... only you can really decide for sure. To my ears the Questyle is unquestionably superior, but it's really hard to put a universal number on it. 

Hmm, so this thing actually manages to use the WM8741 in its dedicated DSD mode; AFAIK, no one else does it this way because it's a massive pain to implement? I assume that they don't use DoP headers because then the Wolfson might automatically default into converting DSD into PCM (usually 352.8 kS/s?) and hence would be decimated. Does that mean then that it has to use an analog low-pass to take out the resulting noise-shaped ultrasonic signal?

Nice review John I
really enjoyed the read

Tom - yep it's pretty unique in that regard. I see a lot of designs going with the Cirrus CS4398, which is supposedly easy to work with to get solid DSD performance - it has an on-chip volume control and 50kHz filter (no decimation) as well as an optional direct path (no volume control) using a multi-element switched capacitor array. Most designers choose the former. WM8741 is more like the latter except, as you said, filtering must be done later in the analog domain. 

So you have heard the Mytek? It is slightly more expensive than this DAC,,,

I have tried it in Shenzhen, excellent, but not my style...

I preferred the Cambridge Audio 851D over this, even if there is no DSD support on Cambridge. The "mystery chip" most likely performs the filtering and rate conversion like with most CS/WM/AK DSD-capable DACs. I am not sure I appreciate the OP-AMP -based output though. Cheaper DACs offer discrete componentry which, if nothing, add to the cost and complexity which is exactly what I would have expected for a manufacturer rhat just marched intp the DAC arena.
 
The appearance is similar to Audiolab so that is one part of this DAC that  I like.

Syan25 - Yes, I have heard the Mytek, and to my ears the Questyle is definitely superior. Mytek seems brittle and hard up top - very unrealistic to my ears.
 
R Giskard - Regarding opamp output - the original CAS192 used a hybrid output stage with OPA627 plus bipolar transistors heavily biased into class A. The newly redone CAS192D swaps OPA627 for hand selected AD8599s, ditches the discrete components altogether, and guess what? Sounds pretty much identical. So apparently they could tweak the design to accomplish their task even while using less components. Don't get hung up on topology though - results are really all that matter. I'm not clear if you've actually heard the CAS192D compared to the Cambridge, or if that's just hypothetical. 

It is what engineers refer to as "a reasonable measure". In other words, it cuts down the production costs as well as serviceablity. I did not know this was a second iteration of this DAC though. I have heard the CAS192 but now that you are mentioning it, it could have been the previous version, I am not sure. Design topology is my thing (even if I'm in a different eng field) so this what I like commenting on

If you heard the CAS192 (without a D at the end) then you heard the original version, with the OPA627 plus bipolar transistors. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough about the CAS192 versus the CAS192D. 

I don't think it's possible send "native DSD" from a Mac to a DAC:
http://dsd-guide.com/dop-open-standard

Thanks Esprit. I thought I had read something about Mavericks being different in that regard. Apparently it isn't. 

semi OT: Auralic doesn't want to upgrade the Vega to DSD256 because, today, there is no way to reproduce it with MacOS.

Why cant you do DoP for 256 via Mac? I know that this works with a chipless approach (low pass filtering only).

so ... this dac tie with D2 or is better than Anedio D2?