It was really interesting. We started about 11am and finished at about 4pm.
I am of course completely biased in that I have honed my system around the Dave/Mscaler and that is the sound that I like so please take that into account for anything I say about the two DACs.
In general I think all those present thought that the Dave bass convincingly won the day both for its depth and also for its tightness and detail. The Terminator Plus & connected Gaia owner thought its midrange was better and I couldn’t possibly comment on that except to disagree! ![]()
I thought the Dave treble was more subtle and musical whereas the Terminator owner preferred its treble (I thought it was rather ‘insistent’ and drowned out the mid and bass).
Other guests thought that the Terminator had a more 3D presentation and described the Dave as being 2D. I thought it was the other way around.
One of the tracks we played (Holst Planets, Mars) has a distant snare drum and we all agreed that the Dave combination handled that particularly well to give it a sense of depth within the concert hall.
I think that the fairest summary was that at the end of the session each of us could understand why the supporters of the Dave preferred that and why the supporters of the Terminator plus preferred that. Out of the six of us present I dont think that anyone changed their mind about which one they preferred as a result of what they heard.
They both have pretty different presentations and setting aside my preferences and bias I would say that any K50 owner would be well advised to try both as one of them might very well be just the sound they are looking for.
The attached shows the kit we had assembled for the day which also includes one visitor’s DIY dac.
Also attached are details of the three tracks we used. Taken together they gave a really good insight into each of the dacs capabilities.



