Oh phew. SDS/Qualias/Esoteric UX-1 still sounds good. Do I really need a nautilus? Harder to say now.. leaning towards maybeyes still though just because I've always wanted something Eddie Current.

<<jedi mind trick on>> yes Dan you need a Nautilus, call Craig today <<jedi mind trick off>>

Yeah I heard the Balancing Act in its current incarnation right now (Inferior already to the production version as that will have a better power supply, better transformers and what not) and it sounds good.

I'm still leaning towards the Nautlius as more wow factor for me but really to say which is superior for my needs I'd need an extended amount of time with both....

Either way I am going to put a deposit on the Balancing Act and see how goes.

A Filburt DAC -> Balancing Act -> AT AD2000s was phenonemal. A must have for me set up. Listening to track 1 of Take Five (The Sony 1997 version) hearing the absolute blackness and spatial separation between the opening drums/saxophone and very real imaging.... just wow. Putting the Qualias single ended back into the amp I was actually disappointed with the Qualias for a bit though their strengths eventually came back out past the wow factor the AD2000s put on me...

Anyway I dunno if it was the headphones, the dac or the amp or some of all 3... but yeah. For Filburt detractors, well you are detracting on the wrong dude because he knows his shit ;p and that is evident in the sound that comes from his DAC. We used my Esoteric UX-1 as a transport and I am pretty sure that had very, very little to do with how good his DAC was sounding.

Ah, it's the old "slow motion, delayed jedi mind trick"! Slow, but effective.

Dunno but I need to acquire some AD2000s too post haste.