Thanks @Taake La Scala is a valvebased ladderdac as I understand this. There`s a two years old La Voce S3 (discontinued) available nearby which has tempted me for a while. La Voce is not a valvedac and not at the level as La Scala, but it still gets good feedback. Have you listened to it?
Ok, thanks @rhodsutton As i wrote in another post, I need to dive further into this architecture to understand it 
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The TI chips used by Naim are really only part of the DAC. One of the reasons Naim choose them is that they can disable some of the functions and use the SHARC DSP for them instead, where they can be tweaked and optimised.
So even two Naim devices that use the same chip don’t necessarily have the same DAC in terms of performance and sound quality.
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I haven’t heard the La Voce but I did originally plan to buy it however due to a large delay in getting it my dealer offered me a too-good-to-pass-up deal on the La Scala and so I jumped on that instead. If you can I would try to save for the La Scala as it really is hard to beat at anywhere close to its price.
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Be sure to listen to La Voce, I thought it had more drive musically, this was the S3.
As I remember it the older S2 was using the 1704 DAC.
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You mean, I should have a listen to La Voce?
I read that S2 uses the 1704 r-2r dac- chip, so does ndac, but most certainly implementet differently. S3 which is on sale, is built from the bottom, not using chips, but same principle as La Scala.
La Scala is three times the cost of a La Voce, both available second hand.
Nice to see the recent inputs, thanks to all of you 
You have the chinese ones (Holo Audio, Denafrips and Laiv). They have excellent specs and are quite innovative. The Laiv Harmony uDAC is around EUR 1000. Soekris Audio in Denmark do good R2R DAC:s.
My favorite for a long time was the Borderpatrol DAC. During days when the right brain had control it was fantastic with music. I had to drop it because of impedances and level mismatch when used with the 252.
A more normal (haha) DAC but great is the Schiit Yggdrasil. Either the OG model (a bit forward) or the MIB (More Is Better - slightly more soundstage). Mike Moffat who did the digitals designed the Theta DAC early in the 90’s. Yggies is a pretty special design, but great with music - from their manual:
Yggdrasil is the culmination of 5 years of research that started with 1917 Western Electric papers on Pulse Code Modulation, continued with a professor emeritus of mathematics to solve a divide-by-zero problem, followed by a RAND Corp mathemetician to devise the code, and completed with a team consisting of the “father of the DAC,” Mike Moffat, and exceptional digital, firmware, and analog engineers.
It is the antithesis of noise-shaping technologies like DSD, preserving all the original PCM samples from input, through clock reconstruction at the original sample rate, the digital filter, to true multibit DACs suitable for medical and military technology. It is an extension of multibit technology that deviated into noise-shaped solutions 20 years ago. It is unlike any other DAC in the world.
To be honest I think some of the latest Delta-Sigma designs are getting there. I have auditioned the Eversolo DMP-A10 and the HiFi Rose RS151 that both use the new ES9039PRO and I think ESS finally have fixed the top-end and both those streamers are getting close to the Holo/Denafrips sound.
But if you can audition Borderpatrol, Audio Note or Yggdrasil give them a chance!
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Thank you @jan for listing up some alternatives. Yes, there’s many of them.
The Borderpatrol was recommended to me by another guy as well. I will have my eyes open for one along with doing further research on the La Voce. I’m turned a bit off about Eversolo and Rose, not sure why.
Also, I will need to purchase second hand, audition over time at home, make comparisons to what I already have and eventually sell on.
I’m really pleased that I got my hands on a mint Ndac… and a Qutest
Would that be the original Octave or the MKII? If its the original from what I recall, the sound will likely not be a great representation of the current house sound/higher up models. It should have that “analog” sound, but likely lacking in transparency/details, bass might be a bit on the soft/loose side, etc. The newer MKII would probably be a better representation but again, being a more entry level model there are certain aspects that may be lacking, which use to be fairly common with more entry level R2R products. Metrum Onyx/Jade & above would be ideal, or either Sonnet model. I will say the lossless volume control is actually very handy for the OC series, as you can match other sources/compensate for the input sensitivity/limited volume control range (input sensitivity not an issue for NC)
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Great input @daren_p, thanks. There are certainly many traps to fell into here.
The Octave that I can borrow (not buy) is probably the original one, not MK2. The owner linked to a review back in 2012.
I prefer purchase locally, so the selection is limited.
I’m tempted by the La Voce, even if it’s in silver finish so is the Lindemann I have on order. Both are said to meet the Naim soundsignature well.
Actually, I’m in no hurry, but sh adverts does not live forever.
I’ve been using the Norma Revo DAC-1 for a couple of years now. It’ a R2R design. Like a few others mentioned, it is very much an un-digital sound. It does not have the scalpel like precision of a Chord TT2 but found it to be more natural sounding and music just seems to flow.
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I think you’ll find the sound of a DAC comprises of many aspects, and the converter itself a relatively small part.
Naim on their high end components used the Texas Instruments PCM1704K converters. These are multibit balanced/interpolated R-2R oversampling devices. Key internal substrate components were laser trimmed to aid linearity, which can be a weakness of R-2R devices, and as such were relatively expensive to manufacture.. it was one of the best devices back in the day. It is now old technology that is largely superseded in terms of performance, clearly that doesn’t mean it becomes rubbish and clearly still can sound superb, BUT there was a significant amout of know how developed to use them with external filters and other additions to tune the sound performance to preference, so were popular by Naim and other manufacturers, as well as amateur DAC constructors, long after they passed End of Sale.
Which is the point, much of the sound character comes from non actual converter components that support the converter such as the clock quality, EM decoupling, power regulation, digital reconstruction filtering, the I2V converter (super critical) and analogue low pass filter. All these components create the sound character… such as the warmness, pristine ‘digitalness’, bounce, timing, detail etc.. as well as key element to the overall performance of the DAC, rather than the actual converter itself.
The converter itself is going to be responsible in part for the linearity, bandwidth of conversion, and quantisation accuracy… yes all important…but I suspect the ‘feel’ is driven more by the other components.
So in short I wouldn’t get too hung up on the internal DAC architecture, unless you are building your own DACs where you are wanting to tweak and adjust established design patterns. Listen to the converters and choose what sounds best. The converter is essentially a lossy process and the DAC is full of design choices and compromises. You choose the overall DAC product that suits your tastes.
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I think that must come from different Chord DACS. The Chord Hugo mk1 definitely had no bright edge - and was a bit of a criticism back in the day, but I liked it, and the DAVE has no bright edge or lack of edge, it really is on the money, as you would expect from such a flagship device, but it can expose shortcomings down streams like some coax interconnects that can mangle the frequency response, and room speaker matching - if your amp is a high performing amp of course.
The TT2 and Hugo mk2 had a sharper more ‘digital’ presentation perhaps.
I feel the more complete or right sounding the signal is on replay - the more you notice artefacts that interfere with it - such as room reflections, interconnects etc.
BTW quite fond of some of the DAC designs that use the ESS ES9038Q2M converter from a sound performance perspective. Its used in the music industry as well as consumer hifi products
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As mentioned before, Naim uses R2R in their DACs. I loved the sound of 222 and 333 I had which I then replaced with Linn Selekt DSM Organik due to firmware instabilities.
Organik is a delta sigma and although it had better resolution, wider sound stage, better highs etc. it never had that roundness and meat on the bones that R2R has. I was missing that very much.
Just recently by chance I auditioned dCS Rossini Apex and Rockna Signature Anniversary DAC. dCS was even better than Organik DSM in all areas however again it didn’t have that R2R magic to it. Rockna on the other hand, man, it is hard to describe how well this DAC fit me. It had all the resolution and accuracy, but then add tons of musically on top. The music is scary palpable, out in the room with all the meat on the bones.
This only confirmed that to me, R2R will always sound better.
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I appreciate your post Simon, there’s a lot of truth in it. I am fully aware that R-2R technology, whether chip or discrete based, does not necessarily provide all the answers. It is also an old technology that may be overtaken by delta-sigma or other newer solutions. The implementation is also crucial. There are many ways to come around.
To be honest, architecture has never interested me until recently. I do not glorify one over the other, but I have read a lot of good things about R-2R and wanted to know more and understand the differences and would like to try it out too. If you look at technique and performance alone, Chord stands out as a good candidate. When I became aware that Ndac has a ladder chip, I pulled back a little, lowrred my shoulders and just settled down a bit and now look for listeni gexperiences, differences, advantages and disadvantages. Over time, the sound I like best will win me over, regardless of architecture.
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well said
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I happen to be trying out a BorderPatrol DAC, this one being the latest specification fitted with the Jupiter Beeswax HT capacitors, which solve the impedance mismatch issues with many preamps. It does sound wonderful, at this point I’m weighing if it’s going to stay on the primary system pushing the Weiss DAC204 to secondary system duties.
None auditioned the Bricasti m11? I would be really curious. To me the only dac which my boat and was r2r it was the lector digicode. A real dream
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How so? There is not usually a problem with impedance mismatch, the impedance difference is a critical design requirement. The ideal ratio between source output impedance and preamp input is 1.:10 or more with semiconductor designs. These connections are NOT designed as transmission line connections..
With old valve circuit designs one sometimes used transformers to match specific impedances in audio circuitry just because of the limitations of the valve driver design, but that was kind of obsoleted many decades ago.
Am also curious how a manufacturer’s specific capacitor can be relevant here over the considerations for quality, efficiency and consistency for audio in any manufacturer’s component