Primare DAC30

DAC in very good condition warm sound and accurate. 

“Sound quality
Primare makes a point about its components having no characteristic sound and this proved to be the case in the listening room, DAC 30 is a pretty benign converter that has little difficulty getting out of the way and revealing the quality of the music signal. This makes it extremely good at revealing the quality of the source of course and I was quite surprised at the difference it revealed between the coax signal from a Naim UnitiServe compared to a Macbook Air, surprised because the latter seemed superior in many respects. It is certainly more three dimensional as a result of greater low level detail and has a more fluid, effortlessly musical sound. The coax feed resulted in a more precise image but that largely because it didn’t have the depth of the USB.
All that power supply work pays dividends in the noise department, this is a particularly quiet converter, not that others make an audible noise but you can hear an awful lot of fine detail through it. The quieter sounds are easy to appreciate and combine to produce a more rounded and full sound. The Primare is also particularly good on voice whether it be Gregory Porter or Stevie Nicks with Fleetwood Mac. Gold Dust Woman has the full west coast high end studio sound that it should, by contrast other DACs can make it sound precise and timely but too dry. The other side of this coin is that there’s no emphasis of visceral qualities, it won’t put you on the edge of your seat unless the music really demands as much. It’s not quite as immediate as some competitors but that is the price you pay for the finesse. The new Gregory Porter is also a big budget production but in the contemporary style, it sound both polished and properly three dimensional with masses of tonal colour. It’s a more transparent form of luxury, presumably a more digital variety, but I have to say that it doesn’t get in the way of the music and the Liquid Spirit album deserves your attention whether you like jazz singers or not.”