Will be interested to read what your impressions are comparing these DAC giants... would be interesting also to know which is a keeper, if you have no other choice but to keep only one of them.
Do share your impressions here when you have the chance.
Will do! Got the Brooklyn+ as well as the ADI-2 Pro at the moment, the week I've spend with them so far the Brooklyn+ seems the warmer of the 2, very musical as well, there is slightly more microdetail too compared to the ADI-2 Pro. Although there is a somewhat fuzzy sound going on, most likely the power supply that's just not cutting it.
Although the Pro sounds a quite a bit cleaner and a more balanced sound. Not surprising since the power gets filtered through a battery as well as a near flawless USB implementation. It seems there are ways to improve the Brooklyn further such as a linear power supply as well as a good USB reclocker and if you want some customization like the ADI-2 Pro you're gonna need a Schiit Loki as well, but I think that would put the price well over 3000 euro, compared to a mere 1400 euro for the ADI-2 Pro.
Of course the Brooklyn has things like MQA, Apple remote and a phono preamp and slightly more juice, 4-ish watts on the Pro vs 6 watts but then again the Pro has a very nice ADC and a lot of stuff for monitoring. It's just a extremely well thought out and executed amp/dac in general.
I would give the cake to the ADI-2 Pro so far, bit of a no brainer really comparing the prices, both are very feature rich, but if you want some upgradeability the Brooklyn+ might be a better choice as there seems to be a lot of undiscovered potential but then again spend a little more and you got yourself a Manhatten 2 which is most likely in a somewhat different ballpark.
This has been tested with a brand new burned in LCD-X CE as well as a HD 650 which got about 300 hours on it, I will try to get my hands on a Focal Clear this week.
I will probably return the Brooklyn+ end of this week but I still need to try some things. Next up is the Chord Hugo 2 and from what I've heard here on HF it seems to be pretty close to the ADI-2 Pro, although the sound signature will differentiate quite a bit.