Good dacs with balanced outputs

[trappy]

If you are seriously thinking about a pre with a built-in DAC you might want to consider the new SST Thoebe2 with built-in DAC. I picked it up back in August and within a few days I knew that I wasn't going to need my exasound e22 (for which I had bought the Thoebe in the first place) any more. The DAC in the Thoebe is a W4S Dac2 DSD variant w/o the femto clock and Vishay resistors, but coupled to the Thoebe's class A output. I would say the DAC in the Thoebe2 delivers 98-99% of what the e22 does (it doesn't have quite the last degree of transparency, or DSD256.) Plus you get the benefits of a great analogue preamp and a fantastic class A headphone amp (better than the one the in the exasound.) There's also a phono stage available which I gather is first rate (and I am somewhat kicking myself for not ordering, even though I don't actually need it at present.) Price with DAC is only $500 more than the exasound.

[trappy]

How can you trust any company who produces an electronic board in an overpriced case and charges northward of 10k for it? In the same way, how can you trust any company who prices copper at ££££ per m

 

 

Those are two different "Chord"s, I think, no?