It has been about 1 month since I received the PureAudio Lotus DAC1 and during that time I have listened to and/or run it for at least 200 hours. If it needs more break in time, I couldn’t tell and while the sound did even out a little over that time, its basic character stayed pretty much the same.

The Lotus DAC1 measures out at 13Wx10Dx3H which makes it bigger then expected, but its capacious backside allows for excellent spacing between connectors. Around back you will find 5 inputs comprising USB, Coaxial, AES/EBU, Toslink, and I2S with two chunky, widely spaced output connectors. To sweeten the deal, the power supply is built in and you can use your own power cables on the IEC socket. As a special bonus, this product is made in Taiwan, for those that think there are just too many products coming from China.

Enough of the physical, now for something more meta-physical!

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If you read the first post you will understand that I bought the TC Electronics Konnekt 8 to use as a Firewire to S/PDIF converter for my Mac Mini.

There is better sound quality to be had from a proper S/PDIF output, especially compared to te Mac Mini’s Toslink optical connection, which is located at the bottom of the line output jack.

The Konnekt 8 specs at 24bit/192KHz and it does every sampling rate from 44.1KHz to 192KHz. I figured I would be fine for an future high rez music that would come into my possession.

Looks like I was sort of wrong. The Konnekt 8 does do 24Bit/192KHz, but those numbers are internal only! The S/PDIF jack will only do 44.1KHz, 48KHz, 88.2KHz and 96KHz.

Oh well, still not enough Hi-Rez music, but eventually will need to try something else!