But I know people who have heard quite a few Saber DAC's and really they are all a variant on same theme - great detail but definitely on the analitical side of things with a cold top end ie similar to my Saber based WFS - which is not my preference these days.
I've often wondered what a good hi-res dac chip would sound like, when surrounded by very simple electronics like the Killer is.
The biggest problem with hi-res right now, is the transport side. IMHO.
Hi-res discs are played back on DVD type lasers/tray mechanisms, and I'm sceptical about how well these work. I get the feeling that the quality of lasers and readers is just falling by the way side. This is why the legacy CD94 is really hard to top. That aside....
The better way for hi-res has got to be a HDD based solution. But again, we're not there yet. We cant really move on, until we know there is a HDD based solution that sounds at least as good as a CD94 for 16bit files. If it cant do 16bit at least aswell, then I have no confidence in it's ability and quality for higher bitrates, where significantly more data movement is required.
Once we are confident that a HDD based transport solution is on par with the best CDM-1 spinners, then we can move on to finding the best possible hi-res chip (that can be surrounded with elegantly simple electronics).
Is the JKenny Hiface such a solution? I dont know. Mr JKenny has gone quiet on me. I'm hoping he's just busy, and will get to me later.
But I get the feeling we are focussing energy on a bandaid solution. All these I2S boards are doing, is cleaning up the digital signal. It's abit like inbuilt buffering and reclocking in DACs promised to solve our jitter problems. We've since learned it doesnt. There is nothing better than a clean source for digital data.
Terry, if there is an opportunity to be had, it's nailing this problem. PC's are designed for a different purpose, and will always be a compromise. While-ever there is a PC in the picture with it's cheap electronics and lame o/s's, I get the feeling that computer based solutions will always be behind the best quality transports.
SGR are working on a purpose built computer transport for music, which they claim has top quality power supplies, etc. But I think they're pricing themselves out of the "global" market. Their pricing will only ever appeal to niche hifi users. See here;
ClickI think affordable streaming solutions like the Squeezebox, is the pricepoint that reaches mass market penetration. Everyone wants to stream, and to do it as simply as possible, no clunky pc's to worry about. This is where it's at.
So, what would the market lap up;
* Music files stored on a vanilla storage back end (nas share)
* Simple device that will read the files over a gigabit hardwired network (wifi is ok too, but gigabyte is required for top performance for high bitrates)
* Ability to connect storage by USB for those who dont care for home networks.
* Top class power supply in the simple device, and intelligent power design (eg: ability to run off battery power for critical points).
* Support reading all music type formats, and convert to PCM. Top class filters required.
* Top class clocks, intelligence to pick the right clock given the incoming sample frequency (as per the exa board)
* Short simple electronics for handling the data
* Outputs; I2S (RJ45), SPDIF (for mass market), USB (for those dacs with USB input) - no compromise design here, there's got to be a way to have SPDIF output, without compromising the I2S output signals. Maybe plugable output modules?
* Output up to 32/384 (nice to have, 24/192 minimum)
* free smart phone app for remote control
Price point goal; <$300. Pitched at all music lovers, right up to the top end audiophile systems.
Recover R&D costs through volume. Volume target >5,000,000 over 3 years.
Or maybe there is a mass market model with SPDIF @ $300. And top end model with I2S @ $1000 (sort of like the transporter for SB, but it never really took off - the large scale success was at the cheaper end).
Memory is so cheap now. I'm envisaging a device that is caching the data in memory, to avoid inconsistent network or upstream storage performance impacting the end result. This is all just taking the Squeezebox concept to the next level. Slim Devices did well, but I'm not convinced Logitech has the audio nouse to continue on pursuing audio excellence.