[HiAudio]

Prices are very close, $800-849. Which best suit Sennheiser HDVA 600 Amp and HD800 phone? No plan to buy yet. Just searching and reading. 

 

[HiAudio]

OK, I found this review (post # 1017) of the two by Stillhart. Thanks to him.
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/763905/finding-a-dac-for-the-cavalli-liquid-carbon-only-four-months-to-go/1005#post_11872598

 

[jodgey4]

A balanced amp should probably be paired with a balanced DAC... so as much as I love A-GD, the GMB is probably the better choice.

 

[hifi808]

  OK, I found this review (post # 1017) of the two by Stillhart. Thanks to him.
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/763905/finding-a-dac-for-the-cavalli-liquid-carbon-only-four-months-to-go/1005#post_11872598

The price of the standard Gungnir is $849.  The price of the Gungnir Multibit used in the review is $1249...just to make sure you're comparing the correct models to the DAC-19.

 

[HiAudio]

  A balanced amp should probably be paired with a balanced DAC... so as much as I love A-GD, the GMB is probably the better choice.

 
Isn't the output connection by the side or RCA connector balanced output? or it's just balanced connector but the actual current is Single-Ended?
 

 
 
 

 
The price of the standard Gungnir is $849.  The price of the Gungnir Multibit used in the review is $1249...just to make sure you're comparing the correct models to the DAC-19.

Yes, I knew the two versions of Gungnir. 

 

[jodgey4]

It's just a balanced connector, SE output I'm 99%sure. Either way you couldn't use it, as that output is in the current domain, not voltage, so you can only use it with other ACSS A-GD gear and Krell.

 

[Rhamnetin]

If you're willing to take a gamble buying used, the Timbre TT-1 offers balanced XLR out and is said to be one of the absolute best DACs for under $5k.  It was over $3k at launch I'm pretty sure.
 
http://www.audioasylumtrader.com/ca/listing/DAC-Processors/Timbre-Technology/TT-1/DAC/129784

 

[HiAudio]

It's just a balanced connector, SE output I'm 99%sure. Either way you couldn't use it, as that output is in the current domain, not voltage, so you can only use it with other ACSS A-GD gear and Krell.

This is very disappointing, at least to me. It's a great DAC that I can afford in short term after I got the two Sennheiser gears. btw, thank you very much for clarifying this.

 

[jodgey4]

The idea behind it is that outputting current from a DAC/pre into the actual amp section allows you to skip some buffers and keep a more clean, unaltered signal. So using the DAC-19 ACSS into an Audio -GD C2 amp or such might thus have an advantage over similar seperate DAC/amp combos that communicate in the voltage domain. It's just a nice bonus feature ... not to mention it might help convince people to stick with other Audio-GD gear to take advantage of that feature.
 
At the prices you're looking at, you could look at the Audio-GD NFB-1 and maybe NFB-7 for balanced DACs (though the GMB might suit your gear better than the NFB-7). They're smooth ES9018 DACs from what I'm told, which would make sense from my balanced ES9018 NFB-28.

 

[HiAudio]

Thank you jodgey4.
 
I will look at those you mentioned in your last post.