My SA3-PA3 story, hope this helps - I’d been using an Audioquest Black DAC to play ALAC files from iTunes to my older NAD integrated amp. The right-side channel crapped out in March, just a few days after the corona virus stay-at-home regimen took hold. On-line reviews looked good, and all the stores were closed, so I bought the SA3-PA3 stack. With so much time on my hands, I also bought two new DACs - the Audioquest Cobalt and the Schiit Multibit to check out. (I figured the DAC in the IOTAVX preamp couldn’t be all that great, considering the price for the whole thing was less than USD 500). The Cobalt sounded better than the Black when plugged into the IOTAVX stack, but it was still distinctly shrill at the upper end. However, the Schiit multibit sounds fine. I listen to a lot of classical music, especially Bach. I don’t hear distortion in choral music. I can hear the sound of the spaces where the music recorded. The imaging is notably better than what I was hearing earlier with the Black hooked to my NAD. (By the way, that shrill-at the-top Cobalt sounds fine when connected between iPads playing ALAC files into headphones)
