Jacklin, I fully expect you'll only find this dac gets better over time just as I have.
And so, I've been running 005 for perhaps a month alongside Auralic Vega, LKS 004 and Okto Dac 8 stereo (w streaming, have yet to listen in depth, review will come in time).
First some context. Over thirty years as audiophile, churned a fair amount of equipment over these years, modder (have experience with many boutique capacitors, resistors, discrete voltage regulators, etc. System used for following 005 review is limited to my custom built 300B monoblock amps, Coincident Statement pre, Klipschorns (extreme mods,only bass cabinet is original), steaming setup too complex to list here, Roon with no DSP, Synology NAS for cd rips. Dedicated AC lines, power conditioning, dedicated room with carefully planned acoustic treatments, all i's dotted and t's crossed in regard to entire system. If interested details can be found in Audiogon virtual systems under sns.
I now have well over 50 hours serious listening, well over 400 hours burn on 005. Right off, first listen, perhaps 100 hours burn, I could tell 005 was special. While 004 resolution and transparency are pretty special, 005 takes it even further. What was a black background became a limitless sense of sound emanating out of the ether, this kind of quiet needs to be heard to be believed. The other aspect of sound that stood out initially was an amazing sense of breath from performers, a much greater sense of live performers in my room. Replicating this sense of living, breathing entities in audio systems requires an athletic power supply, one that can produce those nuanced micro dynamics that give performers breath. Superior macro dynamic performance was exposed by much less compression during transients, greater sense of ease, lack of strain, allows one to relax more into the music. Much less congestion during crescendos and complex passage added greatly to this sense of ease And so, those particular aspects of sq were what I focused on intially.
Over time, as I began to focus on other aspects, I heard at least equal to or best transparency ever in my system, no sense of looking through a window. This aspect of sq is something I've found SET amplifiers to excel at, an immediacy, performers being transported to room, rather than being transported to recording venue, quality . A more expansive sound stage with greater precision, along with more dimensional imaging brings about a greater sense of holographic life size performers in room. Tonality or tonal balance can only be described as neutral, dark recordings sound dark, bright sound bright. Allied to this is reach of bass and high frequencies, both extend out further than I recall, especially in bass. Excellent power supply also allows greater impact and articulation in bass. 300B SET amps are often characterized as having looser, rounder quality bass, my 300B monoblocks now compete with my Coincident Turbo 845 as heard partnering with other dacs in this department. I expect even more impactful bass when I get around to listening sessions with 005 and 845 amp.
And so we now get to the purportedly achilles heel of sabre chip dacs; namely timbre. Initially, while impressed with improvement over other dacs, I still found 005 to be slightly on digital side of analog/digital divide. Over time, listening sessions divided by 100 hour increments of burn in, brought improvements here. And now over last 15 hours listening and 200 hours more burn in of 005 (along with burn in [300B amps] of newly installed Texas Components TX2575 resistors in signal path and Duelund Silver bypass capacitors in power supply) I'm now hearing what I can only describe as organic sound. Not a hint of digititus, really very analog like sound. And I do know what analog sounds like having grown up with it, been through Regas, modded Thorens, a couple of upgraded VPI setups, all belt drive. Now fully restored Technics SP10 MkII with 100 lbs custom plinth, etc. Point of this equipment description is that I'm not imagining analog like, organic timbre, this level of harmonic development out of an upsampling capable Sabre chip dac is possible!
My take is the 005 is the real deal, deserving of being in upper echelon of dacs. I'd like to see reviews of this dac in context of dacs like Aqua Formula, Holo May, Totaldac, Mola Mola and others I'm failing to mention. Ultimately, I don't care about schemes, whether it be R2R, FPGA, NOS, AKM or Sabre chips. Its all about sound quality, how you get there is beside the point. In the end, it comes down to a single person, perhaps a committee of people voicing audio components. You have to hope these people have similar sound preferences to your own for maximum enjoyment in your system. Having said that, I expect the 005 will excel with a variety of setups, whether solid state or tubes. Many assume tube setups are warm, I can assure you this isn't the case here, been there done that, I highly doubt the 005 needs the buffering effect of tubes. The 005 is simply a highly resolving, natural sounding dac! Assuming one's setup has the resolution necessary to hear this dacs full potential, any anomalies will be due to other pieces in system.
