The inside con.tent. With two small holes in each corner of the DAC's belly facing short hex bolts to secure the cover on the far side, one needs not only a sufficiently long key to penetrate the chassis but a magnetized version to get the bolts back in. Unless JianHui Deng could provide inside photos—his website curiously has none for the Deluxe—I was properly conned out of taking my own. I lacked proper tools to crack his case. That leaves my external inspection. The cluster of six square buttons reads power, input, mute, P/D, D.F and FREQ. Digital inputs toggle sequentially so coax ⇒ AES/EBU ⇒ BNC ⇒ USB ⇒ Toslink. Optical coming last makes a statement?  Also, the analog inputs aren't available from here. A long input press selects between fixed and variable output mode. Fixed is called 'direct'. The mute control double-tasks, too. A short press cuts the signal, a long press is 'reset' should "abnormal conditions occur". The P/D switch toggles between preamp and DAC mode. In the former, only the analog inputs are active. Now the display reconfigures itself to show the chosen input in the upper left corner, mute in the right and a big volume setting in the middle. D.F selects one of eight digital filters. As their number increases, so does the stop-band frequency. FREQ sets the sample-rate target to DSD128, 256, 512 or 1'024. A long press defeats most upsampling. Now anything above DSD64 processes natively though DSD64 still force-converts to DSD128. PCM enforces DSD256. Clearly Cen.Grand consider it the minimum to properly treat Redbook files; and don't view native SACD aka DSD64 competitive.

Included in the shipping carton was a proper English instruction manual, beyond-generic USB and UK/Eire-propriate power cable, black metal remote with seven white buttons and a hex key to insert two AAA batteries not included due to recent shipping regulations. By showing zero fasteners on the front, top or sculptural cheeks, the DSDAC 1.0 Deluxe caters to expectations raised by its suffix. So does substantial weight and thick metal paneling. There's no mistaking this for budget kit well before we play tune one.

Around back is still the mystery of a currently unoccupied so panel-sealed bay for another digital input. The Cen.Grand website already announced a forthcoming digital server with proprietary high-speed DAC interface not RJ45 or USB. Presumably the empty slot future-proofs the DSDAC 1.0 Deluxe for that new transmission protocol. Before that's all she said, there's still one minor detail. The hardware volume controller isn't motorized. Remote commands won't move it. Whenever the output value shown in the display doesn't match the knob's physical setting—it only would at one single value—turning the knob quickly resets the numerical readout to reflect the mechanical position. It's all automatic so no bother. It simply tracks the engineers' preference to not use a separate motor on this control for probably sonic reasons. Many 'extremist' brands have kissed remote volume good-bye because of it. So it's lovely that Cen.Grand manage both. A final peccadillo is that elevating volume to max +5dB with the physical knob triggers protection circuitry and flashing. It requires complete counter rotation of the knob to clear. The same was true already for the SIlver Fox. It begs the question why not max out at +4dB if one decibel higher isn't safe? Of course via remote (the Silver Fox has none) +5dB works just fine on the DAC. That incongruence is my second minor mystery. Time to swap office chair with listening room rocker.

But first, Mr. Deng's inside images taken on an iPhone 13 Max.

We appreciate that this power supply uses twin toroids to segregate digital and analog circuits plus two more potted transformers or coils for AC filtering.

What goes on beneath the gold bonnet is another mystery. This one is about Cen.Grand's very best clock. It's not the same as in the two lower models. Unless it's mostly empty for a change, this is a decidedly massive affair.

Spartan-6 and Alterra Cyclone IV chips point at high-power processing to accomplish PCM⇒DSD1'024 conversion in real time. The AK4118 referenced on the board's silk screen is a digital receiver that auto detects non-PCM bit streams.

We now appreciate how this is no sparsely filled box jacked up and weighed down to fool buyers. It's a densely populated affair sized exactly as its contents demand.