I thought this may be of interest:
Just finished a fairly thorough critical listening comparison between my DI-20 USB rig and my CD transport, and seemingly against all odds the DI-20 one-upped the CD transport! Playing the same song at the same time on both systems into the Qutest DAC I was able to rapidly switch between inputs. The differences were very subtle. Both sounded almost identical with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING lacking on the DI-20 system. The differences I could discern were that the DI-20 system sounded modestly more true-to-life or organic, with a modestly larger soundstage. And not a bloated soundstage or anything of the like. This is no small feat I tell you, because my CD transport, though mid-fi is a very decent model and brand (Teac CD-P650B), with a very good Toslink optical cable directly to the DAC (
this 1300 strand optical cable). By contrast the CD transport sounded ever-so 'fuzzy' like details were faintly 'smeared', something that can only be noticed with a fast A/B as it holds its' weight very well.
Along with feeding my DI-20 an improved USB signal with the help of both iFi Micro USB iPurifier 2 and Wyrd, I'm also using a state-of-the-art RCA cable. Recently I had a friend put together an RCA cable, DIY project to save vs. commercially available; using Neotech Nei-2001 UP OCC single/mono crystal silver cable which can without exaggeration be said to be the best wire in existence for electron transfer. Check out the review of this cable
here, and mine used even better RCA connectors than theirs, also from Neotech. A large part of what made my DI-20 system finally overtake the CD transport could have also been due to the V4.07 firmware update, before which the transport had won the comparison.
@smodtactical did you notice any improvements with the update?
