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The Jeff Rowland also projects voices in a subtly more forward plane than most components, rendering vocal tracks with realism and presence. I attribute this to the ultra-quiet ultra-black background. It’s black hole dark in there. So otherwise well-balanced mixes that nevertheless feature a purposely spot-lit performer (usually vocals but often a lead guitarist or soloist) will delight the listener with a stunning ‘in the room‘ perspective. Also responsible for this phenomenon is the Aeris’ extraordinary resolution and instrumental separation. Every strand, every nuance is clearly displayed even while still providing detail-rich smoothness and yes, musicality. In fact going back to my notes, I noticed in big capital letters the words written in messy haste whilst obviously relishing the tunes: “THIS DAC IS PURE MUSIC!”
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Play cymbals, bells or any high-frequency rich recording and you’ll be presented with an open and airily extended performance. Grainless and pure, harmonically opulent and beautifully decayed treble attributes, this DAC has... well, it’s like a tweeter upgrade really. You’ll actually relish this trait as you’ll finally discover how good your high-frequency transducers really are, be they soft or metal dome, ribbon, foil or other.
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Refinement in the context of audio is a hard concept to define in terms of musical or sonic performance. In the case of the Aeris, in my system the refinement ‘shout lines’ would be the delivery of sublime detail, harmonic texture, midrange presence and upper-frequency delicacy. All this whilst managing the acrobatic balancing act of also excelling at brutal bass power and providing stunning frequency-wide tonal purity. No easy task there and seldom achieved in totality.
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Conclusion. As alluded to in the intro, there’s a regular barrage of DACs hitting the market from all corners of the globe. Many are me-too products using readily available chips with power supplies and circuit design painted by numbers.
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With the aid of Thomas Holm, Jeff Rowland has brought to the market a product with JRDG’s renowned build quality and aesthetic beauty possessing generous features and connectivity while aiming to advance the state of the art of digital playback. Yes it’s quite pricey but you’re paying for the implementation of a number of bespoke and proprietary technologies and unrivaled build quality. And there’s an attractive savings if you’ve only got a digital playback system. The substantial cost of a preamplifier can be dispensed with. A time machine indeed, the Aeris’ exquisitely pure and virtuously forceful digital playback reigns supreme. The future is here, right now!
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