This may be a question for Stan , however any thoughts and experiences would be helpful. I have a Caiman with a Gator board that I am using to drive a Quad 33 preamp that in turn drives a pair of 303s driving ESL 63s with Gradient subs. It sounds absolutely stunningly good however the Caiman only has 1 toslink which is a bit of a shame as I am using a CD with an optical out and also a Chromecast Audio for Spotify and Radios 3 & 4. I just got hold of a Bushmaster which has 2 toslink inputs. Sadly this sounds a lot less clear and has substantially less bass. The Bushman is a 1.3 revision board and the firmware chip has a single red dot rather than a number so I guess is probably original firmware.
Are there any mods that can be done to the Bushmaster to get the same kind of sound quality that I am getting from the Caiman? I note there are a couple of different firmwares available if I understand the Beresford.me website correctly, BMI-Serum and BMI-10 or are these the same? Also there are the Venum board mods. I am a little hesitant at soldering SMD components though happy enough with old fashioned wire leg devices What is the consensus on the order in which to do and value of each of these mods and how close are they likely to get to the sound of my Caiman with Gator or what changes or differences would there be between the sounds of these two DACs.
Another question, Currently I am driving the DAC into one of the radio inputs on the Quad 33 using attenuated leads that I got to drive my CD player into this input. I have the option of the lower sensitivity tape input and will shortly have an unattenuated cable for that or to drive into the radio input. Currently the Gator seems reasonably well matched to the attenuated input, are there any specific mods or port choices that might make what is already excellent even better?
Whichever DAC doesn't get used in the main system will be used in the secondary system predominantly for another Chromecast into a Yaquin MC100B driving CELEF PE1, a system which also sounds much better than it should do considering the age and cost of the equipment!
Looking forward to everyone's thoughts
Kevan