Any Digital Impressions of the Caiman yet?

[Themis]

cheers for all youre help im thinking caiman cause you can play with the opamps, where would you put the sb3 with analoug out to the pre using the
built in dac cheers ocean

SB3 - Neutral (but simplifying)

[oceanobsession]

SB3 - Neutral (but simplifying)

And do you think paying lots more money gets you more detail or just hype
cheers ocean

[StanleyB]

And do you think paying lots more money gets you more detail or just hype

Pay me lots more money and I'll give you more detail. Honest.

[Themis]

And do you think paying lots more money gets you more detail or just hype
cheers ocean

Lots ? What do you mean ?
IMHO, my dac should never cost more than 20% of my system's value. And I wouldn't buy one if I had a system that costed less than 1000€.
Now, if you mean "is there a direct ratio between added value and added subjective quality", I would say no.
The Caiman is a very good example for this. (little money, lots of qualities)

[Chippy_boy]

I think it (the Caiman) is a great DAC for £200. It's probably a great DAC were it £500. But I have to say I bought a Benchmark DAC1 HDR recently and imho it is significantly better than the Caiman (sound-wide. Of course it's also better facilities-wise).

You can't expect miracles really.

[roscoeiii]

oceanobsession,

Also, it's worth noting that many of the comments on this thread are about the Caiman without the Caiman specific power supply (which got held up due to the slowness of regulatory approval). New units are now being shipped with the new power supply. And those of us that got the Caiman with the 7520 power supply are now able to upgrade to the new power supply.

My power supply just arrived today and I will probably wait a bit to comment on it, giving it time to break in. But you can see some impressions of the Caiman with the new power supply (aka PSU) on some of the more recent posts in this forum, and in the Caiman PSU forum.

Good luck in your DAC search. I've found the Caiman to be an excellent deal, and look forward to dipping my toe into op-amp swapping when I have the time (and probably after the warranty has expired).

But as for a preview of my feelings about the new PSU...

[Themis]

The Caiman and the Benchmark HDR use the same opamps ?

[StanleyB]

I read that the DAC1 uses the same opamps as the TC-7520.

[leo]

Just shows how opinions vary in this hobby, I tried a Dac1 and didn't really rate it, I wouldn't say its significantly better than the Caiman

[Themis]

Just shows how opinions vary in this hobby, I tried a Dac1 and didn't really rate it, I wouldn't say its significantly better than the Caiman

Well, imho, it's even significantly worse, considering the price. But Chippy was talking about the HDR, which is another design alltogether (if I understood properly).