I’ve not heard the lina, but I’ve heard other DCS, and it’s true they have awesome liquidity and smoothness while presenting a lot of information, although personally I don’t think their presentation is for me or meshed well with my equipment I’ve tried with them. But dcs is great, you just have to be looking for a clean yet very liquid and smooth sound along with a somewhat slightly rounded and micro take on things
It’s good and compares well, it is a more warm, relaxed, rich, and smooth sound that excels at being non fatiguing, liquid, microdynamic focused and has great nuance. Although I think it somewhat is too soft for me and also spatially is sort of diffuse for my tastes. Macrodynamics and control could also be better. I think one big thing to note with all playback designs dacs I have heard is that they perform significantly better with DSD than pcm, so I wouldn’t consider them if you don’t have a big DSD library. But if you do have a decent amount of DSD, they handle that better than most dacs do at that price point for sure, a lot of it’s downsides aren’t noticable when feeding it dsd. I’ve not had a playback designs dac in house though, only have heard demos on a friend’s system who is a big playback designs fan (and other dacs that the playback designs designer has worked on such as nagra and bat for example)
Steve Huff has a very specific preference when it comes to sound characteristics as is apparent from a lot of his videos. He’s definitely a liquid tad warm and very musical type of audiophile. Nothing wrong with that of course but it’s not for everyone
Whilst I’ve no any other experiences to compare to at this level, I’ve heard the dcs Lina stack at Canjam and my brief impression matched what M0N described above regarding DCS gear. Since I listened the three pieces together (streaming DAC, clock, Headamp) I can’t confirm how the DAC on its own sound so I can only assume the entire system is tuned to have a similar sound signature. For some reason I actually prefer the Lina stack for a utopia than a mola mola + riviera AIC10 as I find the latter a little bit analytical and aggressive (or too much macro focused) whereas the Lina stack is more smooth and rounded, but I think as an amp the riviera probably is a higher tier than the Lina Headamp in terms of technical performance.
Reading back through some of your posts here, it’s not clear to me that you’ve outlines your current chain or what it is that you’re looking for in a DAC. That will help a lot if you haven’t already shared it.
At the level you’re looking, there’s nothing that’s crap, it’s just going to be a mix of different flavors and technicalities that would all shine in the right environment.
I’ve not heard the amber 4, but I’d definitely take the Baltic 3 over the amber 3 so I might just go Baltic over amber, but the question really is the Baltic vs sw1x, and I think it will really again come down to synergy and preference, what are you really looking for in a dac upgrade outside of what you’ve already mentioned, and is your system plan still the same?
What amps and cans do you run? Also, whats your current dac/wat do/dont you like about it? From asking similar questions previously i think the baltic vs sw1x ii spx will be pretty similar performace but well different signature
So just for shits and grins and because i want to limit my searches, what’s a brutally honest and revealing DAC that doesn’t suffer horribly from digital glare in the $3k +/- range, new or used?
Imaging, soundstage, space, depth and background blackness being key. I don’t mind a sound signature emphasis be it high mid or low, but i like my depth, imaging and the separation in space between instruments very much.
Am i asking for too much at this bottom dollar price range? I want to keep the cost of the other pieces relative to the cost of the DAC.
Your opinions, knowledge and most importantly experience are valued. This would be for mixed HP and speaker use being wired in primarily to Hp equipment that i usually have doing double duty.
Used Berkeley of some sort (really this would be my focus), dangerous music convert 2, something ayre or resonessence perhaps. At least that’s what comes to mind right off the bat
At least these would be more on the no nonsense side of things
The Berkeley is most sensible and easiest to locate. (Dangerous music popped up right away too, especially since you have mentioned it in the past, and i had it marked in my sweetwater account but i don’t care for the rack mount size at the moment) the other choices are very interesting products i had not heard of before.
Do i need to focus on an Alpha 1 or am i missing something, the Alpha 3 is up there in price?
alpha series 2 is right in that range, a series 1 one is alright but I’d try and find a 2. You could find a reference 1 but that would be more around 5k
@archer and @M0N …i pulled up that listing and found 2 golden gates and an idion audio piece also on my watch list…lol humorously enough, i’m not looking to up the B3, i want something for my small room that isn’t warm, less detailed in micro/macro dynamics ( i think is more appropriate word than soft & sweet). I want to see what some of my equipment can do when i feed it a brutally clean signal up front🧐
I had this on the watch list too. Problem with all of these is i was trying to keep the cost relevant to the rest of the equipment which is all under $5k new
This would be for mixed HP and speaker use being wired in primarily to Hp equipment that i usually have doing double duty.
You know i so trust your ears and knowledge. 
