I think the little DAC will be a hit as soon as people a the Roon/CA forums notices it. Mainly because it is an affordable way of getting hardware MQA support and DSD512.Yes its Jareks and my design - the original basis of the design is our FDAC / MDAC2 XMOS "software" development board.
Sadly the first production batch (and being reviewed) was manufactured without our approved components (Note the Pink / Silver organic capacitors) - and a few other changes.
I brought this to Heinz attention and he's insured me that changes will be made and correct parts used in the future production. As a designer, no one likes to see unapproved design changes - I was VERY surprised at the "political" issues we faced working with a Czech / Slovak production company's - it does make me appreciate working in China more and its kind of sad to say that!
Using my contacts I ordered the correct capacitors - so it appear Heinz a man of his word and I very much appreciate that
Its a good little DAC, Dual ESS9038Q2M, Multi regulated PSU, Polypropylene capacitors and precision MELF resistors etc... but you have to consider its small size and theres only so much that can be squeezed into such as design and yet still keeping it simple for production in Europe.
You want a small no nonsense DAC for your Office / Bedroom etc its perfect.
Supports MQA and is Roon certified...
The DAC really appreciates a good clean PSU - and works very well with the Detox.
Its also works well with DSD DSD performance has been much improved with the new Hyperstream II DAC's from ESS - I'm glad that we are able to use the latest Hyperstream II devices in MDAC2 / FDAC.
Many want to try MQA and also to upsampling to DSD256 or DSD512 now that Roon supports it out of the box (Even though it might not make a SQ difference. But sometimes you do thing just because you can).
At the very attractive 349 I do not see any competition.
Well done!