@Promee I see the Qutest in your list of DAC tagged.
How is the Qutest vs. Dayzee? I want to upgrade my DAC and the Qutest is one of my top choices.
I had the Qutest. LOVED it. Size wise there is nothing that comes even close to doing what it does.
A while back I got the J2. At the time I had the Qutest and to me the Qutest was a different beast than the J2. Better in all ways. When I got the J2S dac and put in the Sparkos SS2590 opamps though, that to me in my system that and the Qutest so close that I sold the Qutest. There were areas where the Qutest was a bit better for the specific listening I do and in the specific system I have but I had to really really really concentrate and listen hard to notice them. Others might have a different expeirnce with their systems if they have a kamillion dollar hyper revealing super system, but I sold the Qutest because to me they were SO close that it was almost superfuous to have both. I don't like having two versions of the same thing in my collection and I don't like having two very similar sounding things in my system. To be clear I am not saying the J2S with SS2590 is objectively better than the Qutest. I am saying that to my ears in my system they were similar enought that I saw no point in having them both. I love the Geshelli family and what they do for hifi enthusiants on a teacher's budget like myself so my opinions are qite flavored by that, and also I would make more money selling the Qutest so I did.
I got the J3 eventually and loved it even more. Not night and day from my previous opiunion of the J2S I described but just a bit better in every way. Then I saved up and saved up and got the Dayzee. I then put the Sparkos 2590 opamps in. This to me was WAY better. The Dayzee to me took everything I loved about the J2s and the J3 and elevated it to a whole next dimension. I do not have a Qutest with me now to test it but I can't begin to tell you how much I love love love the Dayzee. From a sonic standpoint it's mind bending to me. The J2S, J3, and Qutest were fun and great but the Dayzee to me is irriplaceable. From a use standpoint it's untouchable. What I mean by that is that I have two single ended tube amps on a rack in my listeneing area next to my desk, one giant class A balanced heaphone amp on a rack in my listening area next to my desk, one small single ended Fosi Audio speaker amp on my desk, one smaller balanced class A headphone amp on my desk, I have all that connected to the Dayzee and I even have one more available single ended output available on the back of the Dayzee if I want to connect anything else. They dayzee can accept like a billion digital inputs, can even act as a digital passthrough if you have some other dac that works well with toslink or coax input, it does a billion things. Like I said I don't have the Qutest with me to test but experinceing how close my experince with the Qutest was to the J2S and how much wildly better the Dayzee is than the J2s (with the specific opamps I am using) I can only asume that I would feel that the Dayzee would sound way better than the Qutest in my system. I am only assuming there, I want to be clear. Use case wise though, the Dayzee is infinatelty better than the Qutest for me in every way imaginable.
If you are looking for the Qutest vs Dayzee comparison, the Qutest for its size is honesly one of the most amazing devices available. I LOVE it. I love all things Chord. They are amazing. They deserve all the praise. That's for sure. Love love love. the Qutest though is designed to do one thing. The Dayzee is designed to be a digital hub to connect to many things. Two very different design intentions, two different adventures. I would look at use case and avaiable area as your determining factors. The Dayzee is GIANT but I have never in my life heard anything like it. It singe handedly rebuilt my conception of what a delta sigma chip based dac can offer. Even at it's MSRP buying new I can't imagine a better dac. The Qutest I would only buy used. I don't think it is the best or really worth it to me in my system at the MSRP buying new.
I love my Dayzee in my system like Pooh Bear loves honey. LOVE. It's irreplaceble. The Qutest to me is great but it doesn't do anything special enough to deserve a permement place on my racks.
Hope that helps. Feel free to ask anything else!
