We have finally had our first opportunity to listen to the SW1X DAC II Standard - our first listen to any SW1X product. My intuition about this designer, Slawa Roschkow, and my willingness to bet on him could not have been more spot on. As you can see from the setup we are using an ordinary Oppo player as our transport. I should mention that at every one of our show demonstrations throughout the years we have borrowed very expensive digital front ends from well known manufacturers. In every case we have found our analog front end to be more engaging and more musical, and we would spend the majority of our time demo-ing the analog source as that's what we felt put the best foot forward. This has in large measure shaped my opinion about the nature of digital reproduction and in some sense anchored my belief in the superiority of analog. This DAC, which retails for $3275, run off of a consumer level transport, has to a degree shaken my previous convictions. It does so many things so well that it's hard to believe that it costs this little. It is only one step up from their entry level model.
Here is a list of attributes I have noticed:
• Beautiful tone reproduction - Instruments sound natural and authentic
• Excellent sound stage - proper placement of instruments in three dimensional space, front to back, top to bottom and side to side.
• Three dimensional volume of the singer and instruments very palpably delineated
• Excellent layering
• Each note of the piano is laid down properly with the correct amount of weight
• Tuneful articulate bass
• Serious Slam and articulate growl
• Complete lack of congestion on orchestral crescendos
If the DAC II Standard (basic model with no upgrades) is this good, what will the higher level versions and models bring? What happens when we pair it with the SW1X CDT II or CDT III Transport (The CDT II and III are all tube servers.) We will soon find out what the higher models bring as we are awaiting the arrival of a DAC III with multiple upgrades and a DAC V also with multiple upgrades.
Here is a list of attributes I have noticed:
• Beautiful tone reproduction - Instruments sound natural and authentic
• Excellent sound stage - proper placement of instruments in three dimensional space, front to back, top to bottom and side to side.
• Three dimensional volume of the singer and instruments very palpably delineated
• Excellent layering
• Each note of the piano is laid down properly with the correct amount of weight
• Tuneful articulate bass
• Serious Slam and articulate growl
• Complete lack of congestion on orchestral crescendos
If the DAC II Standard (basic model with no upgrades) is this good, what will the higher level versions and models bring? What happens when we pair it with the SW1X CDT II or CDT III Transport (The CDT II and III are all tube servers.) We will soon find out what the higher models bring as we are awaiting the arrival of a DAC III with multiple upgrades and a DAC V also with multiple upgrades.