The term high-end takes on a different meaning when talking about products like the Aavik SD-880. It’s in a class where the selection is not large, but all the more exclusive.
It has only one task: to function as a network streamer, and with the built-in digital converter, you can connect digital audio sources.
Like everything else from (ex-Gryphon) Flemming Erik Rasmussen’s pen, the design is spectacular. The same can be said for the price, which stands at an almost unbelievable 67,000 euros.
For that money, you get a streaming DAC that, according to Aavik, has no digital signature. The SD-880 uses Aavik’s non-switching Continuum Processing DAC, as they call it. It samples the signal to 22 MHz and then converts it to an analogue signal.
The designer himself, Michael Børresen, says they realised that the usual switching process that a digital converter uses when converting the signal creates an audible digital signature, which they have eliminated in the SD-880.
The Streamer DAC is available at select retailers.
