Dangerous Music Source

Using this for music listening as a DAC paired up with a Bryston BHA-1 amplifier, this sounds phenomenal. Excellent bass impact and adds a level of warmth to your headphones that's within good taste.

This is easily the best monitor control system on the market under the $1,000 mark. I can't honestly see any reason not to buy this unit. Mainly targeted at DJs, producers, engineers, and musicians.. the converters and headphone amps in this unit alone would make this a very compelling option for the hifi/audiophile consumer as well. The ability to configure how the inputs and outputs behave through various toggle and latch mode configurations allow for seemingly endless options. You can even create and use a talk-back mic with this unit! Do so by plugging a mic and pre-amp into analog input two. Then just hold the "an 2" button on the headphones source side to speak directly into their headphones. This and other clever solutions/uses for this unit are further detailed in the manual that comes with the SOURCE. The SOURCE also incorporates two independent DACs for the AES and USB inputs! This means that both digital inputs can be auditioned independently or simultaneously with no extra setup. This also means that you can send the unit two different clock rates between the converters and it'll still behave just fine. (Note: The AES ports on this unit can also serve as coaxial SPDIF ins/outs as well. Also note that the origin, no the destination, will dictate which the protocol is used. If you provide the source with AES signal, the "through" port on the unit will be outputting an AES signal. If you would like to use spdif, all you need is an AES to SPDIF cable (digital XLR(M)-RCA).) The headphone amps in this unit are also worth every penny. Very clean and extremely powerful.

Bought this for my monitors and headphones. Very neutral and transparent DAC, yet still very fun to listen to. I use this primarily with my Mackie HR824 Mk1 (with Mogami Gold 2549 FWIW) and I can say it works fantastically with this. The sound is very transparent. Bass is super tight. As a monitor controller, the knob is very precise and heavy duty, no imbalance or anything. Easily competes with higher end DACs (I know this gets thrown around a lot, but seriously it's that good). I love it with headphones as well. Drive my Denon AH-D2000 and KRK KNS 8400 very well. I don't have my planars anymore but from what I've heard it should drive most of them as well. The headphone amplifier is pretty damn good, definitely not just an add-on. Ergonomically, the buttons and the latch modes are very intuitive to learn. The only negative I can think of is that the top plate can be finger print sensitive. Seriously, that's all I can think of. I thought the lights would distract me. During day time, it's fine, although at night time and with all the lights off, it can be a bit annoying like if you are watching a movie or something. Although these are very trivial things. It's nothing like the bright blue Emotiva stuff. I can easily recommend this to anyone from a casual audiophile to a mixing/mastering engineer. It truly does maintain a neutral and transparent sound.