I read the review of the North Star Design Essensio DAC [HF/VJuly '11] with great interest as I own the earlier, similar 192 Mkll model. While I generally agreed with the conclusions in the review, I would like to contradict the statement that the hi-resolution content of DVD-A is 'locked in' the disc player. This is indeed true if you use a Pioneer DVD player, as was the case in your review, and as I found out when I used one to spin my DVD-A discs. But to my surprise (and delight) I discovered that this is not always true. I exchanged my Pioneer DVD player for Cambridge Audio's Azur 650BD universal disc player [see HFN Yearbook '10], which exports the full hi-res stereo output via its S/PDIF output when playing DVD-As. For example,
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