Who Are Your Favorite DAC Designers?

musicfirst1

VIP/Donor
Mar 8, 2015
504
309
395
Canada
www.musicfirstdistribution.ca
Interested in you favorite DAC designers, and to a lesser extent Transport/Server/Streamer designers.

Designers and brands that come to mind include, to name a few, Odeon, Trinity, Zanden, Audio Tekne, Kondo, Audio Note, Esoteric, Cees Reutenberg, Stavros Danos (Aries Cerat), Lukasz Fikus (Lampizator), Slawa Roschkow (SW1X) Bruno Putzys (Tambaqui), MSB, EMM, Wadax, MBL, Burmester, APL, etc, etc.

I'm loving the Kassy and Tambaqui, but could use another winning horse.

Any thoughts on a short audition list to compliment the above two thoroughbreds?

Thanks

Kerry.
 

Thieliste

Well-Known Member
Aug 31, 2014
815
295
285
53
Totaldac (Vincent Brient), Aqua Acoustic Quality ( Cristian Anelli).
 

rubinken

Well-Known Member
Jan 15, 2020
119
71
95
73
Olympia, WA, USA
Alex Peychev (APL Hi Fi)
 

Gregm

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2019
525
381
155
France
I think it would be remiss to forget Vassilis Tounas of Ideon Audio.
His designs, ranging from the modest Ayazi, to the Ion and the Absolute Epsilon (not forgetting, reclockers and streamer), are world class.
 

LL21

Well-Known Member
Dec 26, 2010
14,411
2,509
1,448
In 35 years, we have effectively had 4 systems so the average tenure of a piece of equipment has been reasonably long. The Zanden 4-box digital designed by Kazutoshi Yamada has so far remained the longest running piece of equipment ever in that time. From 2008 (DAC only) to 2014 (latest gen4-box DAC + Transport) through 2022 and running strong.

Interesting that of the 12 owners of the 4-box set that I have spoken with, to my knowledge, 11 of them still own their Zanden. This includes our superstar super-system owner Audiocrack whose legendary system includes the Zanden digital alongside the mighty Wadax Ref DAC.
 

Solypsa

Well-Known Member
Jun 7, 2017
1,811
1,399
275
Seattle
www.solypsa.com
I admit to being more analog centric but based on impact:

Keith Johnson / Pacific Microsonics for setting a multi decade long high bar.
 

rDin

Well-Known Member
Oct 28, 2019
230
196
130
55
Rob Watts (Chord). I tend to agree with his ideas on the problems with digital reconstruction and believe he's "on to something", based on what I hear, with his attempts to solve them.
 

Sampajanna

Well-Known Member
Apr 1, 2021
651
756
170
+1 for Rob Watts. Great guy and engineer
Also, Yoda himself, Lukasz the tube wizard.
 

DasguteOhr

Well-Known Member
Sep 26, 2013
2,352
2,510
645
Germany
Ed Meitner for his amazing dacs, bidat museatex , emmlabs and
and development of the dsd format.
 
Last edited:

bk12

Well-Known Member
Apr 26, 2014
17
0
231
I want a vote for Cees Reutenberg, the Sonnet/Metrum R2R guy. Amazing products at great prices. Beat out my older DCS and Lumin X1.
 

astrotoy

VIP/Donor
May 24, 2010
1,547
1,017
1,715
SF Bay Area
I admit to being more analog centric but based on impact:

Keith Johnson / Pacific Microsonics for setting a multi decade long high bar.
KJ and now Lukas. Larry
 
  • Like
Reactions: ayang90

jeromelang

Well-Known Member
Dec 26, 2011
433
66
935
you can only like a dac designer so much.....

the $25K da2v2 dac sounds fantastic.

the $25K TX2 transport is a hidden disaster.
supposedly it has absolute polarity switching function, but users dun get any status indicator on the screen display.
when asked about it, the designer's son said he checked with their engineers and they have already removed the function.
yet, if this was the case, even after 6 months from the day of the enquiry, the feature is still not removed from their website.
and here's the rotten egg: the function was never removed, the transport still respond to remote control command codes to change polarity status, but since the polarity isn't indicated anywhere on the screen display, the user will have no clue when polarity changes has taken place. Worse still, powering down the dac doesn't reset polarity back to its original status.
 

godofwealth

Well-Known Member
Feb 8, 2022
571
872
108
63
Claude Shannon, the inventor of information theory and Boolean algebra for designing digital circuits, without which digital music, the internet, compact discs, hard drives, smartphones, and so much more would never have happened. He also made pioneering contributions to artificial intelligence and robotics. The monetary impact of his scientific breakthroughs are Incalculable, but easily exceed the GDP of the US and China combined. Born in Gaylord, Michigan, a true American genius. Not as well know as Edison, but far more influential to our digital world.

 
  • Like
Reactions: roadCingKlassik

About us

  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

Quick Navigation

User Menu

Steve Williams
Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator
Ron Resnick
Site Co-Owner | Administrator
Julian (The Fixer)
Website Build | Marketing Managersing