The upcoming 880 range aside, all other Aavik product arrives in the same semi-matte black casing with a large glossy interlocked logo on top. The D-180 is no different. Twin finely cut dense foam liners secure it in a cloth bag. The upper cradle's two shallow compartments store a manual and Apple's IR wand wand that activates the menu, changes settings and digital inputs, engages standby and mutes playback. One day I'd like to see that remote all black with red buttons to match Aavik's well-established color scheme but that's just me. There's no power cord included. The target audience would consider it a throwaway and Aavik know it.

Aavik's 180/280/580 models all share the same 102 x 384 x 400mm HxWxD adhesive-free anti-resonant HDF enclosure liberated from the hysteresis effects of paramagnetic aluminium. It's why the D-180 looks exactly like the S-180 streamer. Inspecting their fronts, cheeks, hoods and underbellies won't tell 'em apart. Aavik's housings are designed to stack and look orderly. Play erector set. To make the point, at various shows the company usually has on display towers of three or more. Today's entry-level DAC weighs just 5.2kg and is rather compact so easy to lift and move around. Its specs list galvanically isolated asynchronous USB for PCM/DSD up to 32-bit/192kHz and DSD128. Distortion is below 0.005% (THD@1kHz/0dB) and the S/PDIF inputs hit 24-bit/192kHz. Power draw is below 0.5W in standby and less than 20W in use.

The enclosure comprises two concave cheeks locked between upper and lower plates via four long vertical bolts with dimpled discs on either end. These discs allow one to comfortably stack Aavik electronics directly; or via interceding Ansuz pucks of choice. Three titanium balls per disc convert to added resonance attenuation. The D-180's modest Scandinavian exterior scores high on stability, looks and mechanical damping. Three multi-functional buttons on the left engage standby, mute/playback, remote control pairing, input switching and menu access/exit. There one can check on firmware version, engage slow/fast filtering, switch upsampling on/off, set display brightness (10/40/70/100%) and dim it after 1-5 seconds. The gloss-red dot matrix shows large letters perfectly legible from afar. A single LED either in the lower left or right corner indicates standby or on if otherwise blacked out. Clever.

The D-180's rear sports a fused IEC inlet with mains rocker, a RS-232 port for firmware updates, two DC trigger connectors and five digital inputs (USB, 2 x BNC, 2 x Toslink), while RCA outputs (4.5Vrms/100Ω) communicate single-ended diet. After removing the four upper discs then bolts I was able to inspect the interior. From Srajan's review we already know of 4-layer PCB, ultra-low jitter clocks, 13 low-noise voltage regulators and differential floating topology with virtual ground for the I/V stage to prevent incoming noise. AGD are all about suppressing it wherever possible and go a long way to chase it. The large lower board houses a 100-240VAC compliant switching PSU that relies on sine not triangle waves and neighbors the output stage. A smaller piggybacked digital board includes a BurrBrown sample-rate converter and DAC, AKM S/PDIF receiver and USB transceiver based on XMOS powerful enough to turn into an MQA renderer.

The boards' dimensions conform to specific ratios which mechanically tune them to desirable resonances. They're loaded with AGD's signature noise-suppressing tech with 5 dither circuits, 36 active Tesla coils and 104 active square Tesla coils that respectively take the form of small IC, spiraled squares and oppositely twisted black wires. The more of these bits essential to squash incoming noise reside inside a product, the more potent their compound action. It's how Aavik scale up performance. The D-280 at €10K packs 8/72/176 equivalents, the €20K D-580 goes to 11/108/248 then adds a copper liner à la Auralic and embeds a titanium cross brace on its hood. Today's DAC worked like a charm from the start and my streamer's InnuOS app instantly recognized its USB receiver. I experienced no hiccups or downtime and appreciated how sorted this machine was in general.