Daring to be different seems to be part of Audio Note’s philosophy. But deviating too far from the beaten track sometimes brings the danger of incompatibility. Unfortunately, this is the case with the DAC 1, cheapest of five like-minded units all featuring Burr-Brown’s renowned eight times oversampling filter and 20-bit DAC, with AN’s own valve output stage.

Nothing too outrageous so far. On the other hand, AN’s decision to discard the customary I-to-V (current to voltage) op-amp in favour of a resistor and choke network seems to me to be faintly bizarre. This avoids the spectre of negative feedback but places a great strain on the DAC at low frequencies.

Meanwhile, its ECC88 triodes beef-up the output to a high 3V, giving the DAC-1 an edge in A/B demonstrations but demanding a high preamp load (in excess of 50kohm) if its bass response is not to suffer.
The enriching influence of the DAC-1 turns the acoustic image of elegant and well-recorded vocals into living, breathing performances.