One wonders why he's selling after 3 hours use but be that as it may, mine took a lot longer than 3 hours to reach its peak and sounded pretty mechanical up to that point. I'm still not sure whether it's better or not than my own version TDA1541 DAC with tube output stage. They both sound marvellous with some subtle differences and I happily listen to both. My own version has built in analogue remote volume control which is useful when I'm testing power amps. My objectives of having a great-sounding reference DAC (reference as in never gets modded or touched unlike my own builds
) have been totally achieved and I highly recommedn it as wonderful well-built DAC