I would say the Aries Cerat Kassandra range is very interesting indeed. The Ref II is about 18K euros and sports probably the best sounding chip ever made, the AD1865NK, but uses 16 of them in a new digital engine. It also has a powerful tube output, I/V stage using custom transformers, and output transformers that result in a line level of 6v or 10v at 18 ohms or 40 ohms. It has a 384 USB input and SPDIF with a super clock. Hugely over specified power supply, it goes on. I am thinking this is my destination DAC, watch this space of my review soon .... I think my 20 year search is going to be over. So many DACs been and gone, mostly NOS and latter were all Audio Note models.
To me, Aries Cerat take a different path to so many others, no cutting corners, no small parts, just design it right, even if it ends up big. It comes in at 60 kilos.
See how big it is, next to Stavros (the designer) with an Audio Note M10 (middle shelf) in the background for scale, which is the size of my previous DAC the Audio Note DAC 5.
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Well, I can say that I love having it at home...it is last DAC for me (except a higher Aries Cerat perhaps).