As an audio enthusiast, I know how useful it can be to find people's opinions and experiences on the forums, although they are often completely misleading.
For this reason I would simply like to report my short experience with the newly arrived D10S, using the most "scientific" approach possible (however it may be defined as such).
I state that I wanted to try the D10S because I find a certain roundness in my setup that I don't like very much ... and for what it costs an attempt is legitimate (but also just to try the optical output in comparison to Realtek).
I own a Marantz PM6006 UK Edition, which I have used so far with the internal DAC (CS4398 with discrete IV and LPF and linear power supply), connected via toslink to the Realtek of my pc.
The speakers are Dali Spektor 2 and on my pc I have the Dirac Live Studio software (let me tell you, it is the FIRST thing anyone should consider to get the most correct audio possible ... considering phase and frequency it is incredible how "wrong" it is audio without it ... nothing but bit-perfect!).
I connected the D10S with both the analog and digital outputs, so as to easily exchange between it and the Marantz internal DAC, and since it is not known whether the burning in influences or not, I let it go for a while before to do the comparison.
Then I start to trade, sometimes blindly and sometimes not ... and practically I always recognize each of the two. And hell ... Marantz always sounds "better", more intriguing, more musical, more present.
So I'm starting to think that Marantz's discrete components have their effect, and that maybe the optical output of the XMOS somehow reduces the jitter compared to Realtek ...
But my balls are spinning at this point and I want to deepen, so I take the UMIK1 and do some measurement in REW.
In a moment I find two things worthy of note: the Marantz has an average of 1.5 db more than the D10S (progressive from 1 db on the low up to 2 db on the high) and starting from 1khz the phase has completely different behavior (therefore using Dirac with the correction for the Marantz the D10S is not completely correct in phase).
Heck ... I think the phase difference can be neglected momentarily (also because it becomes difficult to exchange even Dirac profiles in real time) but the difference in level I can easily compensate when I exchange between the two using the Dirac gain (which allows me to make 1.5 db of adjustment instantly, in that small void that is when the amplifier changes source).
So I start comparing this way, and to my satisfaction I hear that the difference is minimal at this point. Maybe with the headphones you can better understand the differences, but with my setup what I hear is only a slight difference in "expression".
The Marantz DAC confirms its relative roundness and slowness on the transients, while the D10S has more detail and more defined and faster transients.
Let me be clear ... we are talking about negligible differences ... not night and day. Both are excellent DACs and do their job, especially the Marantz one considering it's integrated.
But the D10S has that greater "resolution" that I was looking for, so I would say that I can be satisfied.
Soon I will try to redo the correction with Dirac and the D10S to see if anything changes with the speech of the phase.
I also have an OPA1612A that Topping's customer service has recommended to me as a replacement for the 49720 installed on the D10S (it should change a little bit ... but we'll see if it will be appreciable or not).
Ah... also I will try to look for any differences between the Realtek optical output and that of the D10S.