Unfortunately, everything you recommended failed. I tried switching the DAC to NOS MODE, same distortion. Then I switched to usb and coaxial, same result. I haven’t heard anything from Aurender yet. I’m using an Audioquest Carbon AES cable. It plays the same no matter what delivery method I try. I even went a step farther, I found the cd on Amazon and bought it. $19.00 to finally figure out what’s up. I ripped the cd and moved to to my Aurender And hit play. Same thing! it played distorted just like all the other formats did. I even tried to play the cd normally, but there still is distortion in normal playback. Not sure why but…. Thank you all for your help!