Hmmm, so a couple of months down the road and I'm finding this DAC a bit too much on the neutral side of things. I quite liked it with my tube/hybrid headphone amplifier, but the neutrality gets a bit too much with the Emotiva Mini-X A100. The DAC was very impressive as it sounded very transparent and dynamic, but since trying out a couple of other DACs I'm not 100% certain whether this is my preferred sound signature. Think most of my criticism is when listening to CD material where it can sound quite flat and a bit harsh. With high definition sources the NuWave definitely jumps up in performance a couple of notches where I thought it sounded very good again. It remains excellent at detail retrieval.
Having demo'ed a DAC (Vivere) that was developed here in South Africa recently (Amanero USB based + ESS9018), I found its USB input easily surpassed that of the one on the NuWave. That particular DAC was also much more musical and smoother though it is in a more expensive category. Can anyone suggest some mods for the NuWave that they have tried? The coax input is rather underwhelming when connected to my CDP so I'm not sure whether a USB->SPDIF converter would be of any help here?
Having demo'ed a DAC (Vivere) that was developed here in South Africa recently (Amanero USB based + ESS9018), I found its USB input easily surpassed that of the one on the NuWave. That particular DAC was also much more musical and smoother though it is in a more expensive category. Can anyone suggest some mods for the NuWave that they have tried? The coax input is rather underwhelming when connected to my CDP so I'm not sure whether a USB->SPDIF converter would be of any help here?