Battery powered DAC

I am on the waiting list to try this thing out. I don't like the idea that it has to turned off before it exceeds 4 hrs of playing time or each succeeding play time will be shorter. I got the Nixon DAC now and is left on all the time. Chris Own claims the Ack! to be a much better design than the Nixon DAC. It certainly looks better. We shall see.

A review of this unit has been posted in the Digital Drive section of Audio Asylum:

http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/digital/messages/69325.html

I wonder how it compares to the Channel Islands DAC. I think Lak is contemplating on buying this unit for a second system...

Besides Vinnie's, I haven't read a out right positive review/impression of the Ack!. Then again, I doubt a simple non-oversampling DAC will be better than complexed upsampling or with more bits and khz in most people's systems. Best is to try it at home. Chris claimed everyone who did the home demo has kept the DAC. Then again, he sends out demo models...

This is Dusty's opinion taken from the Channel Islands forum in AudioCircle:

"Upsampler... i doubt it for the following reasons:
Although we could probably sell alot of them.. i haven't heard one that makes an across-the-board sonic improvement. The ones that do, usually have something else going on... jitter reduction, interpolation and higher bit rates (word lengths). The CS8420 is an easy way to do it but introduces alot of trade-offs. There is also rumor of the 8420 being discontinued and maybe the whole Crystal semi division of Cirrus Logic."