Thanks, I read those two quotes but I don't intend to change my sample rate to make up for what appears to be a piece of hardware's shortcoming. I was expecting the ifi site to say the sample rates supported but they don't. Even if that did solve the problem, there are so many ppl (/purists) out there who prefer their source to output 44.1 without any dithering or up/oversampling that a solution like this basically discounts the product from consideration... Suggestion appreciated though.
Today I'm certain I've shortened the life of the sockets on these two units from all the plugging/unplugging, having to change sample rate as well each time would be worse. I wonder what the Zhaolu company expects people with only standard 44.1kHz sources to do if they encounter this problem.
Anyway, for now I'll just say that in my opinion, one DAC is definitely better than the other, to the point where I have more or less stopped listening to one of them, after much to'ing and fro'ing last night (6 hours) and this morning (5 hours), just to give both a "fair go." I like to think that if you can tell a noticeable difference in the first few minutes, then there is a considerable difference that most people would notice. If you need to listen to two different configurations for a few hours just to say "ohhh this part *here* is better" then you're struggling to differentiate them. No such struggle occurred in this comparison.