This year has seen my system go through a good del of upheaval. Gone are the Spendor A3 speakers in favor of Audio Physic Tempo and have become really attached to Silver speaker cables - not solid core, but stranded. I thought this was going to be all for some time, however, as the bulk (96%) of my source material is digital/lossless/hi-res it made sense to explore my DAC options.
Last year i acquired a CEntrance DacMini CX and was really happy with it until i was lured by DSD's sirens and latched on to a Fostex HP-A4 to test the waters (it is an excellent USB powered/portable device capable of DSD 64/128) and then I wanted more...much MORE!!!
The quest took me down the path of evaluating DACs from M2Tech, Mytek, Wyred4Sound, Auralic and eXaSound ....... when it was all said and done I opted for the eXaSound. It was close between the Auralic and Wyred4Sound, yet at the end of the day the eXaSound e22 ticked all the boxes for me.
The e22 sounds glorious, its external power supply lets me travel with it easily (auto voltage switching) and it supports DSD 256.
I made it a point not to take demo units from dealers and searched out individual owners to help me in this task. I did not want undue pressure from them in my decision making process. And although dealers will claim to remain neutral and impartial, at the end of the day its a business and they have product to sell. it is paradoxical that dealers/distributors take part in online forum discussions as some NOT all, use online threads/discussions to push, sell and hype products.
eXaSound are new kids on the block and I"m fine with that. I now have a great working relationship with their dealer here in the UK and eXaSound's founder and CEO in Canada.
I celebrate one full week with the e22 and have been oversampling with HQPlayer Desktop for the Mac. This has been a real education. Redbook 16/44 files sound much fuller and deeper as a result. As my Mac Mini 2011 runs on an i5 processor with 8 GB RAM, I'm limited to oversampling with Poly Sinc 2S, DSD7 to take advantage of DSD 256, so my next upgrade will most probably be the latest and greatest Mac Mini - fastest processor and all the RAM I can throw at it.
Lastly, I am controlling the e22 using my Apple Remote and it much smaller than I had imagined. Will have to quiz George (eXaSound's CEO) why they pack the unit in such a large outer box?
