Last night my VDA-2 came, and while I'm not sure there would be much of a point in reviewing it on the manufacturer's forum, I will say that I love, love it. It's replacing a Schiit Modi, though I've used far higher end units in the past, albeit never with a computer source. The whole desktop/computer audio thing is new to me, and keeping size down is important. While I can't A/B against larger high-end units I've owned in the past, I will say that I feel more like I did in my past when I could dedicate large amounts of space to high-end equipment - this little box is leagues ahead of what its size suggests.
I've always been of the opinion that a DAC should have an exceptional analog stage, which is why I opted for the VDA-2 rather than the Transient. But, again I'm rather new to the computer-as-source side of things, and I neglected to realize that my Mac's optical output only runs 44, 48, 96. No 88. And this makes me rather nervous that the 44 is not clocked very well either, as most sound cards work off of 48 (I believe), upsampling all of our Redbook material.
I get that the Transient has its own DAC as well, and I get that the larger benefit of it is likely I2S. But with people using DDCs like the Audiophileo to improve the quality of (non-I2S) DACs, I'm wondering if going USB to Transient, Transient to VDA will yield benefits. Obviously I'd be off the dodgy internal clock and into a dedicated clock on the Transient, so that could be the larger benefit. But will I see the advantages of just how precise the clock in the Transient is supposed to be, or will this be lost along the way, so to speak, to the VDA? I'm loving the sound out of the VDA right now (though my thoughts are murky about how I should let the computer resample 88 files), so this is more of a thought experiment for long-term planning. But, I am curious...
