Dan Bellity at dBSystems of France has been at the hi end of the wireless transport game longer than anyone. This unit, of which I am the original owner and which I reviewed back in 2008 (
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?rdgtl&), is based around Apple's Airport Express. The receiving/dac chip was replaced and linked to a master clock with its own power supply. It also uses Shurter's digital filtration technology and has a massive 200,000 uF capacitor base and filtered power supply. The transformer is mounted on Starsound Technology audiopoints for mechanical grounding purposes, and the stock fuse was replaced with a Synergistic Research Quantum fuse.
Sonically, the unit is very dynamic with no sense of compression. The digital noise floor is vanishingly low and you can hear that in the vast and spacious sound field created. Imaging and decay and a sense of space is stellar and makes most CDPs I compared it to sound flat and two dimensional sounding, including the Granite Audio 657 which I owned previously. It is analog sounding and no dac is required. SPIDF input and RCA outputs. The unit is housed in a custom teak box which Dan said provides sonic bloom. It is in very good condition other than some scratches on the bottom plate from my Sistrum racks (which I strongly recommend). I tested many dacs against it and always preferred using it as a standalone entity. It can be used as a SOTA digital transport if you so desire. If you are looking for a wireless solution that is alternative to a Boulder modded squeezebox or Modwright Transporter, both of which are being phased out due to discontinuation of those SB entities, this is the one to get. In addition, Dan has developed a plug-in (software) that hacks both Itunes much like PureMusic, AND also hacks Airtunes so the wireless transmission is not downsampled to Apple Lossless and then upsampled at the sac level. This unit can be used with both MAC and PC and controlled via iPhone/IPAD, etc.
The unit is in very good shape other than minor scratches on the bottom plate from my Sistrum rack points.
Here is a recent review of its recent progency in 6moons, La Rosita:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/larosita/1.htmlRead more at
http://app.audiogon.com/listings/da-converters-dbsystems-zardoz-ultimo-2013-09-15-digital-28270-charlotte-nc#R8szDfxQ6eCAguJK.99 Db-system site (in French):
http://www.db-system.fr/bd_system/ZArdoZ.html
