No worries. I live in that state!
So back to my initial question: Did the author recommend passing in the Bi-F even if bypassing the DAC? That's what he appeared to be saying, at least to me.
No, I don't think that is what Amir was saying.
Evern on digtal performance is poor - not even realising 16 bit level of Sinad or Dynamic range. It is doing some weird (and faulty) conversion internally.
Just get a Wiim mini - much cheaper and with a much better functionality and user interface. And no messing up on the digital output. The Wiiim analogue out (even in the basic version without the improved DAC) beats the digital out of this device.
The digital out of the wiim is essentially perfect - resulting in 20dB better output than you can get from any DAC, so the performance limitation is only what the external DAC can do.
Or, for a few $ more than this unit, you could get the Wiim pro
plus which has a state of the art DAC buit in.
(Note : you need the pro plus version (not just the pro) for the SOTA DAC)