The "sound" of something is always determined by the distortions at every point. Even every brand of rca jack/xlr jack has a different sound. Most great A/D converters are still using op amps to do the analog processing. If the DAVINA does this then it is limited in transparency as there are no op amps that sound as good as great discrete circuits. Same with resistors, solder, caps, power supply bypass caps, damping, etc. etc. Anotherwords, if does not matter how low distortion the Davina's inherent processing is if the analog path before it is compromised.......and also the power supplies to every part of the thing. Hopefully, he got enough right that it will sound really great. But a huge development? We shall see. Look at what the Lampy guy did with the Tascam to make it sound really great......just one tube in the analog input before being sent into the processor to create DSD128 files. Now this guy is one tweaker! However, it is not PCM......and people want a great PCM A to D as well.