[Rclark]

Have been out of stereo gear for many months. Hit a performance level and became very satisfied, decided to do other things for a while, but back to improving the system very soon.

Dac is next for updating, or rather DAC/PRE. Using Emotiva XDA 2 and I love it. The headphone amp ain't half bad with cans that match the load and I get a fully differential dac with volume control and anti jitter. It's very good, but want to move up to a Dual Core 2.0 with one of the more improved power supplies. Excited by the bass correction aspect.
 
Plan is upgrade to that and a separate headphone amp, and finally get a microphone and basstrapping in addition.

How would the BMC sold by Vapor compare to that? Just asking as both options are in the same ballpark.

I will say one thing, the Dualcore looks like a clock radio, while the BMC is really nice looking. While I appreciate aesthetics as much as anyone else, i am a bachelor with giant polystyrene diffusion at the moment. Looks matter not to me here.

[JLM]

Have you looked at these options PCM/DSD DAC/Pre's (all with headphone outputs):

Benchmark (a true benchmark)
Hegel HD12 (fall 2014 release)
Mytek 192 (better with firewire)
Oppo HA-1 (new, spectacular sound/features, $1200)

The only real solution to in-room bass irregularities is use of multiple subs (search AC for swarm or read Floyd E. Toole's "Sound Reproduction").

[rodge827]

I don't have any experience with the BMC Dac, but...

With the Dual Core you can A/B your Emotiva and it's internal dac. I did that with a Buffalo 32S and decided on the Dual Core dac. Don't be fooled by the spartan looks of the Dual Core that little box packs a powerful punch. Look for a 2013 model it has higher output and input voltage. I have a 2012 unit and experience clipping with the analog input being over driven.  If you can hang on for a few months Dspeaker will be releasing the Quad Core in late 2014-early 2015 (+/- 3k). A larger unit with multiple analog inputs, better room correction, higher bit rate for digital, all of the available digital inputs, and a larger screen. The Dual Core is limited to USB and optical spdif digital inputs and 2 analog inputs (XLR/RCA).



 

[Rclark]

Rodge, I'm already salivating. Decision made. Quad Core 

@JLM thanks for the post, will glance at those as well.

[pkbrown]

Not to restart a thread, but I had the BMC PureDAC for a period of a few months, and it is a very impressive unit. The only reason I sold it was because I really didn't need it and had too many components. For the money and its feature set (especially the awesome balanced headphone stage) the PureDAC is an amazing deal. The headphone section is unlike anything else I've ever encountered. Separate headphone amps may be different but I cannot tell that they are better. The BMC has a unique topology and it works quite well. Highly recommended.