Well I ended up with an MC1 since I found a demo unit for sale over the weekend. Cost was $4500, not sure if that’s a good price or not but it’s about 75% of the cost of a new unit. This is getting a bit off topic since the threads have been merged but I now have a nicer dac to pair with my Formula S + Powerman and Volot.
Brief impressions from earlier today, this was a cold start straight out of the box, but I assume the dac is pretty well broken in since it’s a demo unit. Sound is more lively with better bass control and texture. Timbre seems a bit more real and separation / layering seems improved. Depth might be a bit less than the Pontus but switching to the linear filter seemed to help here. These are kind of vague statements but the general feel I got from the dac was a sense of clarity with good dynamics. I’ve left the dac on since it’s been here and I will listen more tonight.
If I should put this somewhere else since it’s not exactly related to the title of this thread since the merge let me know. Here’s a picture of the dac in my audio rack:
