Should I replace Gigaport HD+ with exaSound e18

[Eurasian]

Hello All,

I am running an Audiolense 3-way active system and thinking of upgrading the multi channel dac. Would the exaSound be an upgrade or more of a sideways move? Both of these dacs came on the market at about the same time (2012).

My other thought is to save up for an Okto, which is definitely sota and has balanced outputs vs. rca with the others.

Any and all comments are welcome!

Thanks in advance,
David

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I am running an Audiolense 3-way active system and thinking of upgrading the multi channel dac. Would the exaSound be an upgrade or more of a sideways move? Both of these dacs came on the market at about the same time (2012).

The Gigaport uses an unnamed DAC chip and is limited:

 

[Eurasian]

I think it uses an AKM 445x multi channel dac, but it is very limited when using 6 channels. The exaSound used the ES9018, I think. Shared with my favorite Benchmark stereo dac.