Looking fwd to hearing about the DAC/CDP comparos, once you all recover...
The DAC shootout was a disappointment as none of the three DACs were warmed up before being pressed into service. The TriVista DAC was being used for the first time in almost a year; the PS Audio and Benchmark DACs had (also) not been used for some extended period of time. The same was true for the digital interconnect cable, and worse, it was a BNC - BNC cable with RCA adapters! I’m sure that does not help maintain a 75 ohm impedance.
We all need to understand that break-in of equipment is real factor and that connecting up a piece of equipment (from dead cold) does not give a true picture of what that particular piece of equipment is capable of. Break-in boils down to (IMHO) dielectric absorption. Dielectric found capacitors, cables, etc., continually charge and discharge (adding and subtracting from the musical signal) until the dielectric becomes saturated. Only at that point is all good to go.
That is the idea behind battery biased dielectric cables. Once the dielectric is saturated it stays that way regardless of the attached equipment being on or off.
Be that as it may, the Cullen modded PS Audio DAC edged out the TriVista DAC by a small margin as the group felt it had a smoother overall sound and was a bit more dynamic. All felt that the Benchmark DAC was flat and not natural sounding. Repeating the shootout under appropriate test conditions might change the results dramatically particularly in regard to the CD player used as the reference.
Another club member (Jay) will be using the TriVista for the next month or so to compare to the sound quality of his EAD DAC.
Russ