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I have stuck with vintage for redbook

I have two DACs, one is vintage (circa 1992) and the other is newish but in with an old chip design.

The first is the Kinergetics Research KCD-55 Ultra, which uses two UltraAnalog 20 bit R2R ladder dacs. These were the ultimate dac modules of the 1990s and they sound that way...awesome.

I am in the process of Lampizating the output (it was discrete transistor) so it will have a tube output off the DAC modules.

The other DAC is a Monarchy Audio M24. Mine is a bit older than the current model, which uses the BB PCM1704K 24/96 chip. Mine uses the BB PCM63K 20 bit chips. It doesn't sound quite as good as the Kinergetics but it is still very good with redbook.

My advice would be to dump the Cal Alpha but instead of the PS Audio get a 1990s DAC that uses either an UltraAnalog chipset (Sonic Frontiers DACS, early Audio Research DACs, Threshold DAC 2, Krell KPS 25 (but not the sc), Kinergetics, Mark Levinson No. 30 or 35, Manley WaveDAC, Manley reference DAC, VTL reference and studio DACs, Resolution Audio Quantum etc.) a BB PCM63 chipset or an Analog Devices AD1862 chipset. All of these will deliver superior redbook sound to a modern delta/sigma processor with upsampling etc.

I tried to love a very interesting DAC for some time...an Audio Aero Prima DAC. This had the Anagram Technologies super sophisticated digital filtering, Analog Devices delta/sigma chipset (can't remember now which one) and subminiature tube output stage. It upsampled everything to 24/192. It was very smooth, detailed, pretty good tone but dynamics were just...lacking. Timing was not nearly as good as my other DACs. I traded it for a VAC 30/30 amp.

For a new DAC I would only consider something from MSB, TotalDAC or someone else who is making a ladder DAC from scratch...pricey but overall better I think.

You could also consider a NOS DAC like the Metrum Octave or Hex or Audio Note designs...I personally found the Metrum Hex to sound superb.

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