phthora
Headphoneus Supremus
I hear a lot of people say the Audio-gd sabre dacs are very polite for a sabre, which is to say they aren't bright like these chips stereotypically are. I found the 28 to be very neutral and the NOS 11 maybe a little too laid back in comparison (with my already warm LCD3).
If you know what flavor you like and might want an early 9038 unit you're doing the right thing buying the stack. I don't think there is any real improvement in sound quality going from a single box to a stack, audio-gd has great power supply regulation and anytime you can use less interconnects that can't be a bad thing. If a person really wanted that extra quality they would be much better off getting a used master 11, a small price bump (vs stack) for a product that is truly on another level.
That is good to know about the sound signature. "Laid back," "relaxed," "polite," tend to be dealbreaker words for me. But, if people just mean that the DAC isn't peaky and harsh, I can't get behind that. My current set-up runs on a 'polite' ES9018K2M and it's a little... dull to me. Of course, there is a lot more to the DAC than the chip, but my experience has made me a little wary. Thanks for the input.
The DAC runs about 700 with the options I want and shipping, so I'm leaning towards the Gustard X20 Pro now. But, the idea of a monolithic Audio-gd stack is sooooo tempting.
EDIT: Does this DAC/amp give a very detailed sound? How does it handle transients? There are so few reviews for this thing, it's hard to figure out its sound profile.