The analogy comes from physics not from me directly - "Although the current flow of a lightning strike occurs only over a short period, the current has an extremely high voltage of some 30 million volts. Lightning is neither a DC or an AC current but best described as a unidirectional massive current impulse of electrons." - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_injury
As "interesting" as this dac might be, it's far too weird to take seriously at $4000 USD. Its has so so many missing features that the compromise at least in terms of most listeners needs and habits I just can not imagine most people in this purchasing class willing to make such concessions. For example this is not really a pre but it "kind of is". There is no coaxial, no I2s, no hdmi arc, no filters of any kind, no headphone jack (although not on many dacs to be sure), and no streaming or roon endpoint ability. Also best r2rs produce amongst the very best audio reproduction in the world at least subjectively such as Terminator II plus by Denafrips, indeed the Gustard R26 is probably the best in the world at the sub $2,000 price point. ESS and AKMs may measure better but they sound flat, non holographic, undynamic and just worse in most respects except detail retrieval. I am not trying to sandbag this unit it IS interesting but I just don't see much use case. Sorry, nice review. Cheers. BTW optical only is super unusual. Anyhow...
@@noseonscent1935 there’s nothing weird about it. It is a really interesting evolution in digital playback. For many it could be part of an endpoint hifi system saving space and money on power amplifiers, preamplifiers, DACs, cables etc. I am sure there will be a lot of demand if sound quality is as good as claimed.
I can understand the hesitation about the design, and it does have some limitations. Having no AMP in between the DAC and the speakers is truly revolutionary in how low of a THD and good control you can achieve with a pair of speakers. ECDesigns makes some USB to Optical converters that I may cover in the future, and those basically add USB to the PowerDAC-SX, which should cancel all doubts about it.
super interesting!! Great review my friend!!
Thank you so much!!
7:28 bad analogy since a lightning strike can be categorized as direct current
The analogy comes from physics not from me directly - "Although the current flow of a lightning strike occurs only over a short period, the current has an extremely high voltage of some 30 million volts. Lightning is neither a DC or an AC current but best described as a unidirectional massive current impulse of electrons." - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_injury
As "interesting" as this dac might be, it's far too weird to take seriously at $4000 USD. Its has so so many missing features that the compromise at least in terms of most listeners needs and habits I just can not imagine most people in this purchasing class willing to make such concessions. For example this is not really a pre but it "kind of is". There is no coaxial, no I2s, no hdmi arc, no filters of any kind, no headphone jack (although not on many dacs to be sure), and no streaming or roon endpoint ability. Also best r2rs produce amongst the very best audio reproduction in the world at least subjectively such as Terminator II plus by Denafrips, indeed the Gustard R26 is probably the best in the world at the sub $2,000 price point. ESS and AKMs may measure better but they sound flat, non holographic, undynamic and just worse in most respects except detail retrieval. I am not trying to sandbag this unit it IS interesting but I just don't see much use case. Sorry, nice review. Cheers. BTW optical only is super unusual. Anyhow...
@@noseonscent1935 it's very unique. I think the most similar product would be the Peachtree GaN 1.
@@noseonscent1935 there’s nothing weird about it. It is a really interesting evolution in digital playback. For many it could be part of an endpoint hifi system saving space and money on power amplifiers, preamplifiers, DACs, cables etc. I am sure there will be a lot of demand if sound quality is as good as claimed.
I can understand the hesitation about the design, and it does have some limitations. Having no AMP in between the DAC and the speakers is truly revolutionary in how low of a THD and good control you can achieve with a pair of speakers. ECDesigns makes some USB to Optical converters that I may cover in the future, and those basically add USB to the PowerDAC-SX, which should cancel all doubts about it.