Pls make sure that it's D1.1 with the new digital output card.
If your dac is C1, pls upgrade it to C1.1 by upgrading its digital input card too.
Thanks for your advice, but in Europe both units are just C1 and D1 even with the new digital input/output cards.
The full story is a bit more complicated for me. I think since 2010 I'm playing CDs with EMM Labs. Beginning with TSD1 and Dac2, later changed to TSDx and Dac2x, and for nearly two years I have the new DV2 (still with the TSDx, the later TX2 unfortunately is sold out). I'm still very pleased with the EMM units, especially with their Optilink digital connection there is no need for an expensive digital cable (except the optical cable from
Aural Symphonics).
Still I admire the CH devices since a long time. The big thing for me is now that my trusted dealer got in a slightly used C1 Mono including the new digital input card from another customer (don't ask me why, he didn't tell me). I couldn't resist and at the moment this C1 Mono sits in my rack and I'm trying to compare it to my EMM Labs combination. Due to a lot of work I didn't have much time spent with the comparison. But I already learned that the C1 units are very susceptible to placement. The EMM units are normally placed in two Symposium ISIS racks with additional Symposium Ultra platforms and Rollerblocks Series 2+ in double stack configuration. Both racks rest on Cerapucs from Finite Elemente.In this configuration I have very balanced sound with the EMM units.
For a fair comparison I put the C1 Mono likewise the EMM units in the ISIS racks. Both the C1 and the DV2 act also as a preamp directly to an amp.
Interestingly I got bloated bass and midbass with the C1 Mono. After all the glorious reviews about the C1 I couldn't believe that this is it. Therefore I stripped the rack to its core - the bloated bass was gone. It looks like the C1 doesn't like the combination of the ISIS rack with the Cerapucs - so the Cerapucs are out of equation.
As I said before I didn't have spent enough time with the comparison, but at the moment the C1 Mono and the my DV2 are rather more similar than different and I can't tell which one I'd like better. BUT I have to admit that the comparison is not really fair because the transport for both Dacs are the EMM TSDx which surely has its own system synergy with the DV2. And until now I used the Optilink cable for the DV2 and just a Nordost Heimdall 2 AES/EBU digital cable for the C1. It's a nice digital cable for the money but probably not the best choice for this test. So I think it's quite a compliment for the C1 for the similarity to the DV2 under these non-ideal circumstances.
Maybe the better question is not if the D1 is still state of the art, but how much better will be the C1 in combination with a D1, especially with the HD Link connection and an additional clock connection from D1 to C1 (I'm aware the combination with a T1 is a special story).