Gordon determined that my Brick v2 DAC had old code which caused the distortion. The solution was a software update via ROM swap. He was correct, after the update, the wonderful sound is back in my system: iMac i5 > Brick v2 DAC > Modwright SWL 9.0 SE Sig > RWA Signature 30.2 LFP-V > Devore Nines
crusing through my audio demo/text tracks as I write this. YEAAAAHHH!