Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

The PS Audio DirectStream has just been reviewed by Marja & Henk of 6Moons.

"With its great sound quality and versatile usefulness, the DirectStream DAC from PS Audio offers the best way we’ve yet encountered to convert ‘digital’ music into real music. "

At first an impressive statement. But without a full list of the previous DAC's they have reviewed, not a very useful one… They did like it quite a bit though. Everyone seams to like it very much. hummmmmm…….

It was reviewed here http://www.bitperfectsound.blogspot.ca/2014/05/directstream-i.html and compared to the Light Harmonic

Matt, the best experimental design would be to blind a non-audiophile listener(s) (preferably your 6 yr old) and cycle through the dacs. You may be surprised by the outcome. For good measure, throw in a cheap chinese variant (Weiliang for example) just to see where things land...:) A few trust friends (one a manufacture and one an end user) have it and the < $200 Weiliang is the equivalent of a few well reviewed, sacred digital cows.

Mattnshilp, Thank you for your excellent honest opinions and observations. I appreciate them, for they are stated clearly, unbiased and without regard to advertising revenue.

Mattnshilp, I admire your effort, but so much is very fragile with everything these days. Or you comparing the units all in exactly the sale location, with the same wiring and ac plugs, and on the same isolation.

I have found the location of feet under a unit make a big difference, that some units work well with cables that another hates, that some cables, most obviously the High Fidelity cables hate to be moved at all and take a long time to recover.

Long ago, I participated in a great double blind testing of many preamps with many of their designers present and voting. This was well before cables were much in fancy as well as before much was done about isolation. We rated each and went on to the next. At the end the Bozak was the winner??? I borrowed one and took it to my home. It was awful! I lost confidence in even well done double blinds, much less the worthless 30 second, same or different crap.