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A valve design using dual triodes, with a switchable output stage, it’s hand-made in Great Britain and Deco explains: “In today’s world of increasingly high sampling rates, bit rates and buzz words like up-sampling, it is very unfashionable to launch a DAC that goes in the opposite direction. However, we have found that, within reason, how you process the digital audio signal is far more important to sound quality than what you process in terms of numbers on a data sheet.

“For us nothing gets close to the sound of a multi-bit DAC chip when used correctly, so the heart of our DAC is the classic TDA1543 chip, a simple R2R (ladder resistor) DAC which allows us to run it without over sampling and up-sampling. The unfiltered output is then fed through our switchable impedance valve output stage using ECC82 and ECC83 dual triodes, meaning it can drive both low and high-impedance amps without compromising performance.”

The TRANSFER Standard features six digital inputs – 4x RCA coaxial, 1x optical and a USB-B with a maximum sampling rate of 96kHz via optical/coaxial or 48kHz via USB. It comes in a half-width aluminium chassis with acrylic fascia and portal window and has a linear power supply with oversized toroidal transformer.

Available to buy now for £550, you can find out more about the Deco Audio Products TRANSFER Standard DAC here.