Here is our take as an Aqua dealer, Aqua makes the most upgrabable digital products on the market.
If you look at a Lascala or a Formula, vs any other dac, you will see 7-8 individual circuit boards the entire unit is completely upgradable for both hardware and software most of the competition is on two-three boards.
We know of no other company whose products are completely modular and fully upgradable so if you are looking for a long term solution to non-obsolence the Aqua product is by and far in a class by itself in terms of long term satisfaction there is really nothing else in this class which is 100% both hardware and software upgradable.
Rokna does seem like an excellent unit the issue with Rockna is will they offer upgrades and stay current and how easy is it to upgrade their units and will they offer this?
There are some exciting new updates coming in the Forumla for 2019 which will again elevate the performance of the Formula, yet again.
We have a late 2017-2018 Forumula and it is fantastically musical when used with an Innuous Statement this will be one of the best sounding combinations you can get we found that the Formula is very sensitive to footers and power cords we put a set of Critical Mass Center Stage footers under the Formula and we were like wow the difference was amazing and adding a good power cord again elevated the performance yet again.
So with the Aqua how was were you using it? Which usb cable? What sever?
The Aqua is a fantastic dac and is one of the best choices for a top notch system however it requires a ton of break in 300-500 hours, if the sample you heard did not have that kind of playng time and you were using the dac on its stock footers you didn’t hear the Aqua.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
