^ By far the BMC PureDAC is the best DAC I have heard (the others being Meier StageDAC, Beresford Bushmaster, Schiit Bifrost - uber not yet installed, Eastern Electric MiniMax). But I have not heard any of the DACs or DAC-combinations (e.g. Bifrost+Wyred) listed here.
IIRC Boatheelmusic tried it but detected the Sabre 'digital sheen' :eek: I don't hear this (maybe brain hasn't learned to recognise it) but interestingly my other Sabre dac the MiniMax comes bottom of my stable. It has a "pristine purity" about its treble which is like mid-Winter air and frost. Remote, cold, distinct. Marred by a muddy low-end (this in SS mode), it's definitely my least favorite with the LCD2r1 or LCD3F.
Relative strengths of the BMC: more low-level detail, especially in the bass and lower mids; a lot more bass information - e.g. texture - than from these other DACs, giving perceived "more bass"; nicely controlled and extended top end, no false detail, certainly more "organic" than the MiniMax.
It gives me the impression, though I can hardly claim it is an educated one!, that I hear the music rather than the DAC. (I think similarly of the Wolfson-based Meier Stagedac, which however does the bass less well and gives less low-level detail. The other Wolfson contender - the Bushmaster - is a surprisingly "direct-sounding", transparent DAC, a bargain).
All of this FWIW, TME, I like apple pi etc.