Halide DAC HD

Asynchronous USB audio class 1 DAC

• Power – supplied from USB connection. LC filtered (two pole passive) and down regulated; separate power rails for digital circuitry and master clock. 
• Drivers – Plug and Play, using Streamlength™.
• Supported rates – 44.1, 48, 88.2, and 96 kHz (user selectable), at 24 bit resolution. 
• DAC: Wolfson WM8716 
• Length – 2 meters standard, other lengths available.

Website Halide

Price: US$ 550

Soulution 590 USB converter

Asynchronous USB converter.
24/192 USB class audio 2.
Driver for Win

Digital outputs:
- 1 x SPDIF (RCA)
- 1 x AES/EBU (XLR)
- 1 x Optical (Toslink)

Website
Price: CHF 3.000

FlacWavLoader with SoX SRC

For those who think WAV sounds better but like the convenience of a well tagged FLAC there is this little program by Mike Galusha.
It converts FLAC to WAV.
It writes the output to a folder but on systems with sufficient memory the file is cashed so memory playback too.
It calls your media player
The latest version also added SoX for resampling.

http://www.mikegalusha.com/

Price: freeware

Sonata media player

If you think that dbPoweramp is one of the best rippers and format converter available and JRiver the best media player, Sonata it a media player to look for as it is an integrated version of  both dbPoweramp and JRiver.
It caters for classical music by supplying tags like genre, style, composer, work, conductor, orchestra, soloists, singers, period, instrument, etc.
They build their own proprietary classical database called SonataDB that now counts +40,000 albums tagged by musicologists and that incorporates hi-res covers art.

Website
Price: €99.00

Wyred4Sound Music Server

• Wireless control 
• Supports 24 bit 192 kHz files 
• Coaxial, Toslink, I²S outputs 
• Automatically copies CDs using built-in drive 
• Network file uploading 
• 1TB of on-board storage 
• Internet Radio 
• 3rd party apps such as Pandora®, MOG and more 
• Interfaces with Sonos Zone Players 
• Back-up the hard drive contents with one click 
• Fan less 
• Low power consumption 
• Formats: AAC, APE, AIFF, Apple Lossless, Monkey's Audio, FLAC, QuickTime, MP3, MPEG-4, Musepack Ogg Vorbis, MPEG-4 SLS / HD-AAC, WAV, Windows Media, WMA Lossless, WMA Pro, Wavpack 

Price: US$ 1,999.00

Website

Elan JazzMaster 10CX

Coaxial active monitor

System	2 way active
Price	$2499 CND (piece)
Drivers	Coaxial 10 inch woofer 1,4 inch titanium dome tweeter
Frequency Response	35 Hz to 20 000Hz (extended LF), 45 Hz to 20 000Hz (normal), 55 Hz to 20 000Hz (restricted LF) ±2dB on-axis, anechoic
Cabinet	Bass reflex, dual port
Digital input	N/A
Analogue input	XLR
Amp	2x 170 W Class D
Crossover	DSP: 96 kHz, 24 bit AD / DA conversion, 28 x 28 bit multiplier with 56 bit accumulator, double precision processing. Crossover at 2,5 kHz

Website: Elan

Find HD Music

Find HD Music is a search engine for finding high resolution music downloads on the web.
The search engine lists high definition (24bit) downloads that are available from the major HD music vendors such as HDtracks, iTrax, Linn Records, Naim Label, eClassical, The Classical Shop, Channel Classics and HIGHRESAUDIO as well as smaller sites such as Melba Recordings.

ExaSound E18

DAC with volume control and headphone out.

• ES9018 SABRE32 Reference DAC
• 8 channels at up to 32bit/384kHz (USB only)
• Asynchronous USB interface 
• Ultra low jitter 
• Galvanic isolation 
• Bit-perfect ASIO Driver Reference-class specifications
• Automatic sampling rate switching 
• Plays DXD 352.8 kHz 

Price: $2000
Website

Ayon Skylla II

Manufacturers description:

Ayon Audio is pleased to introduce the superb Skylla II DAC featuring a fully balanced digital and analog design. In its digital section, four Burr-Brown PCM -1704K DACs are arrayed in a true differential dual mono configuration. The differential gain stage is composed of two 6H30 high-current tubes per channel. The Skylla II DAC features a vastly overrated, high capacity power supply for the 6H30 analog output stage with tube “bridge” rectification, choke coupling, three oversized power transformers, two for the analog and one for the digital section. The Skylla`s sound is rich and detailed, highly transparent and holographic, the resulting sound field representing an complete, realistic reproduction of the recording, a life-like mirror-image of the original performance. The Skylla II DAC provides audiophiles with a new, exalted level of digital playback experience, comparable only to the best available analog sources.

Ayon Audio
Price:  € 5500,-

Wyred4Sound mINT

Mini-Integrated amplifier

Inputs
2 analog
S/PDIF 24 bit 192kHz
Asynchronous USB 24 bit 96kHz

DAC: ESS

Output
Pre-amp out
Headphone out
ICEpower amp 100 wpc in 8 Ohm

US$ 1,499.00

Website

WAV vs FLAC

One of the many endless debates in computer audio is WAV vs FLAC.

Some people report an audible difference. Most of the time in favor of WAV.

Other says this is plain make belief, placebo, etc because when FLAC is converted back to WAV the result is bit identical.

Others argue that the processing power to convert FLAC to raw PCM is higher than in case of WAV so this might affect the timing (jitter).

An obvious downside of WAV is the lack of a tagging standard resulting in poor portability of the tags between media players / playback devices.

FLAC has a well-supported tagging schema.

From R14.1 on dbPoweramp has an option: uncompressed FLAC.

Now you have your uncompressed WAV with the tagging capabilities of FLAC.

Looks like the best of both worlds.

A bit more:

http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/WAV-FLAC.htm

http://www.audiostream.com/content/dbpoweramps-flac-lossless-uncompressed-wish-come-true

Klangwerk Ella

System	2 way active 1 tweeter 3 midrange/woofers
Price	€ 13.200 (pair)
Frequency Response	36 - 22000 Hz (-6dB)
Cabinet	Bass Reflex
Dimensions	1130 x 216 x 190 mm
Digital input	-
Analogue input	XLR
Amp	Class G  120 + 40 W rms
Crossover	1600 Hz

Website Klangwerk

Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus

• Twin Wolfson WM8740 24bit DACs used in dual differential configuration
• New Anagram Technologies ATF2™ 24-bit/384kHz audio up-sampling / jitter reduction
• Optional Digital Preamp mode allowing connection directly to power amp or active speakers
• 24-bit/96kHz driverless USB Audio 1.0
• 24-bit/192kHz USB Audio 2.0 with ASIO or kernel streaming modes.
• USB class 2 driver for Win
• Asynchronous USB transfer 
• Selectable digital filters - linear phase, minimum phase and steep
• Balanced XLR audio output and RCA phono output
• Two 24 bit digital inputs (with optical or coaxial for each)
• External input for optional BT100 Bluetooth receiver - allows audio to be streamed and up-sampled from any paired Bluetooth device

Price: £349.95

Manger MSM C1

Type	Active 2-Way System
Price	from € 13200,- per pair incl. 19% VAT
Cabinet	Enclosure closed
Dimensions	(H x W x D) 44.8" x 10.6" x 8.4" (1139 x 270 x 214 mm) Weight 105.7 lbs (48 kg)
Frequency Range	30 Hz – 40 kHz
Drivers	Tweeter: Manger Sound Transducer, Bandwidth 80 Hz – 40 kHz, Rise Time 13μs Woofer: 8"(200 mm) fibreglass-Polyester sandwich cone, 38 mm voice-coil
Crossover	330 Hz
Amplifiers	LF: 250 W @ 8 Ohms HF: 180 W @ 8 Ohms Power Bandwidth HF: 250 kHz (-3 dB)
Input	XLR-3 (balanced)
Finish	Silk matt as per RAL, Nextel or piano finish

Website: Manger

Centrance DACmini PX

DAC 24 bit
Headphone out: 1.5W (headphone output, total), drives 32...600 Ohm headphones
Speaker out: 50W (speaker output, total), drives 4...8 Ohm speakers 

Line out

Inputs

USB: 24 /96 adaptive mode 

S/PDIF: Up to 192 kHz Coax

Toslink

Price: $1475.00

Website: Centrance