I am curious - has anybody else here replaced a Terminator with another DAC? I bought a Terminator and was amazed by it for about six months, until a friend of mine brought a $1,200 DAC with the Analogue Devices AD1865 R2R chip. I was absolutely sure the Termi would be all over my friend’s little DAC with this ancient DAC chip. But to my biggest surprise, that was not the case. I realized what a “musical” DAC really sounds like. For those of you who think the Terminator is a musical DAC, try a well implemented tube DAC with the AD1865 chip. I ended up selling the Terminator and went that road.
With all the raving reviews about the Terminator, people really expect that it outperforms anything on the market below $15K. At least that's what I thought. Well, I just wanted to mention that’s not really the case. And it's a lot about personal taste.
Actually, I was all over the forums reading raving reviews just before I bought the Termi and while I had it. There was only one bad review by one of the editors of AS (AudioStream). I was so obsessed by the Terminator, that I started hating the reviewer who posted that review. Now, after all the euphoria is over, I think he was right, and had a very objective opinion. On the other hand, another reviewer of AS loves it and uses it as his reference DAC.
For those of you who are wondering - my advice is to give the Terminator a try but keep your mind open. And try a well implemented Analogue Devices AD1865 DAC if you can. I am sure that's also a matter of personal taste, but if musicality is your priority, you should definitely give it a try.