I just purchased the new Cocktail Audio x40 about a month ago. I completed setup and the transfer of my 1.6Tb of lossless rips and high definition downloads and have been enjoying it for about two full weeks now. Bottom line impression, very pleased with the result for the money.
Some background on my experience. I have a Bryston B135 Integrated Amp pushing B&W CM-10 speakers. I was originally using an Olive O6HD as my digital music server before I relegated it to use as an expensive doorstop over a year ago (a long sad story). I then had to re-rip my 1,600 CDs to my laptop (as Olive stored them in a proprietary indexed format after ripping and I couldn't find a way to copy the underlying flacs ripped using the Olive off of its internal drive) and used JRiver to play them off my laptop through an Oppo BDP-105 USB DAC connection to my audio system. The CD rips definitely sound more "musical" on the x40 and do not have the harsh edges some songs/discs exhibited when served off of the laptop through the Oppo DAC (this is not a knock on the Oppo DAC, also a Sabre, but likely due to using a PC that was not primarily engineered to be a high fidelity digital music server) . The difference was most noticeable on higher octave female vocals.
The x40 also plays DSD downloads at full fidelity and works with Double DSD (DSD128). I downloaded a Keith Greeninger recording from Blue Coast Records in both the DSD 2.8MHz and DSD 5.6MHz versions, and the presence of Keith's vocals and guitar in my listening room was ethereal in the 5.6MHz version.
There is very little out there in English that I could find on Cocktail Audio in terms of reviews and forum discussions. Most of the information of value was in German, Italian, or French forums (thank heavens for Google translate). According to one of the distributors I talked to who seemed quite knowledgeable about Cocktail Audio said they thought Cambridge Audio was behind them (Note: I did not independently verify this). The documentation in the x40 manual and online about the WebUI lay out the basics, but there was some trial and error required until I figured out how to successfully accomplish what I wanted in the most efficient manner. Once I got through the learning curve, I think that both the hardware interface and the WebUI (particularly the new beta version) are well designed and reasonably user friendly. Most of the knocks in reviews of their x30 model was in regards to using it as a power amplifier as well, which Cocktail Audio jettisoned in the x40 and instead focused on improving it's digital music server credentials.
The other solutions I was considering were the Sony HAP-Z1ES and the Bryston BDP-1USB. I had concerns about some limitations of the Sony unit, and while the Bryston hardware was higher end and the unit is very well regarded, the final solution would have cost at least 3 times as much by the time I coupled a good DAC and transport to it, resulting in a 3 device solution that also needs an external powered USB HDD to do what I accomplish with just the x40 and its internal HDD, and I am not sure how much additional improvement in sound quality my old ears would be able to discern going that more expensive and space consuming route.
I'll post any significant updates to my experience using the x40 in my system as I log more hours.
