[francisdemarte]

I took on building the y2 as my first major project and the first time I've ever worked with smd components. It was challenging and rewarding at the same time. Some of the parts are extremely tiny. Patience and steady hands are great assets along with a flux pen some tweezers and a multimeter

Start with the y1, the rest is basically paint-by-numbers of getting the right part into right area of the board.

 

[MrSlim]

Fault51's preferences are based on an unfair comparison, since He is comparing the Gamma1 to his Buffalo, and Opus, which are both using higher quality DAC's than the Gamma1. The Gamma2 and the OPUS use the same DAC, and should be closer together in sound quality. Of course the external circuitry (outside of the DAC chip itself) does have major affect on the sound, and in fairness to the OPUS, it has more options on how the output is configured vs the GAMMA2. It is up to the listener to decide whether they like the sound of one particular DAC over another.

Bang for buck though, completely cased, the GAMMA2 has it over the OPUS, since it is an all in one, case ready, whereas, the OPUS would require a much larger case, more case work, power supply boards, separate output board, etc. I doubt an Opus could be built for the same price as a GAMMA2