During 2023 I got the audio nervousa bug and the itch did not stop during the whole spring and in my line of fire was my DAC. My PS Audio sounded just fine but online talk indicated that there´s more music to be heard.
It started a while back with all the buzz about the Holo R2R DACs and since I owned an R2R DAC many years ago that I loved. My Ontech AD1865 DAC was really good with an addictive sound, lively, dynamic, true timbre and detailed but sadly it was not adapted to computers or other modern sources.
During all of 2023 the exchange rate between Euros and my Swedish krona have taken a dive so the Holo have become rather expensive for me. Hmm, I was forced to regroup and look into alternatives that would suite my budget and offer adaptability for both headphones and IEMs that I needed.
My short list had the Weiss DACs as they were available used, Benchmark DAC3 and a few others. This summer I got lucky when I could buy a used a DAC3 HGC for a fair price to try at home and it was the biggest improvement I have done in a long while.
To me its super resolving – it dig very, very deep into the recording, dead neutral, dynamic from a super black background. It digs deeper in all my music, every track, good and bad with very little coloring or Sabre glare that I can detect. As many other products that doesn´t come with a character it can be viewed as a bit boring but there in lies the its best strengths. There is a difference between sounding good and sounding truthful.
I have wrestled with this as I love metal music and metal productions usually suck big time but I also have many really fine recordings that adds balance. In the end I find it hard to come up with better ways forward for me as it offers an experience that is somehow addictive for a modest fee.