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Contrast by triangulation: Vega, Hex, Platinum. The Hex has no variable outputs. At my levels the Vega's on-chip digital control gets lossy. Even so I wanted no preamp. Each was to be on its own for dynamics, tone and fleshiness where active linestages often act as benign signal conditioners. Enter Crayon Audio's CFA-1.2. Its pot is purely passive. With no active linestage but remote volume control in the analog domain, all three DACs were on equal—and potentially lean—footing. Whilst I usually run PureMusic's 64-bit upsampler to 176.4kHz for the Hex and 352.8kHz for the Vega, for this session each deck only saw native resolution. Since Antelope call it the default setting, their internal upsampler was on. So was AURALiC's which can't be bypassed. Metrum don't upsample at all. And that was it for comparative context. What about results?

Though the Platinum quite upped the bill in these games, it didn't set up shop in a higher performance tier. I don't know how much coin it'd take to get there against my decks. What was clear? Antelope's $5.500 were insufficient. Dealing instead in minor sideways manoeuvres, the Platinum staged a tad deeper and with greater top-end illumination to have a narrow edge on layering and classic far-behind-the-speakers perspective. The Vega's slightly richer more saturated colors arose as though on a virtual gloss display like a modern Mac's. Zodiac colors were a bit more muted like a matte display. Though tone density differs from color temperature, like all other hifi qualities they intersect. Hence the Vega's take paralleled its darker colors with a perception of slightly greater physicality and contrast. The latter wasn't dynamic contrast but what's casually though fittingly called image pop. For that and the same 348kHz/DSD128 compatibility at a lower price, some could find it more attractive. The moment one seeks preamp replacement however, the Platinum's full-scale useable volume wins. Add headphone drive and Igor Levin's twin boxer gets ahead not on sound (here it's equivalent if not identical to the Vega) but on all'round featurization.

That functional assessment held doubly against the 192kHz-limited Hex sans DSD, volume or headfi. But on pure sonics this A/B refused to get one-sided. Do you favor no crossovers or 1st-order filters and sealed over ported alignments without being able to clearly articulate why other than to point at vaguities like 'easier', 'better timed', 'rhythmically clearer', 'more natural' or such? If so Cess Ruijtenberg's NOS DAC in this trio remains unique. If not—and the majority of listeners seem inured and immune to this quality to respond to other triggers instead—it could walk/talk right past you. With ancillary gear translucent to this real but hard-to-quantify aspect, the Hex for this very reason remains my go-to digital deck. But former contributor Michael Lavorgna of AudioStream for example who shares my assessment of the Vega nearly verbatim doesn't relate to the Dutch equally. What the Vega does differently matters to him far more. Aussie contributor John Darko meanwhile also compared both. Like me he accords the Hex equally high if different marks than the Vega. For this discussion let it suffice that on this count the Platinum and Vega team up against the Hex. If the latter gets to you, the other two don't do the same 'thing'. And vice versa.

On color intensity and its black content for depth, the progression upward was from Hex to Platinum to Vega. Purely on top-end vivaciousness and champagne fizz, the Platinum came first. On body my three decks played it mostly on par. To this ex valve fancier they did so with sufficient weightiness to satisfy fully without a single tube in the chain if one's amp/speaker set—here the Crayon/Wave 40 combo—accounts for proper tone development.  Because the general sound was dominated by high spatial awareness, the simultaneity of dense detail reliant on high separation and the transparency necessary to look deep into the rear of the stage, it remained less fleshy and chewy than SETs and good vinyl do it. On microdynamic expressiveness and another vaguity called 'flow', I thought the Hex most endowed and 'right'. But as with all other factors, this grouping was narrow and the offsets were small.


Whilst waiting on Antelope to sort out why high-speed Class 2.0 USB mode wasn't talking to OSX to enable 384kHz and DSD128 reception as advertised, I could explore the difference between native and 4 x upsampled DSD64. Leaving the software panel open, one mouse click took care of it on the fly. If associated propaganda set up visions of major revelations, my major failed to check in for the job. Think of certain snazzy digital filter options. They might measure different/better but in practice are too subtle to get decisive at all. The one minor difference I might grant the DSD upsampler had to do with focus/contrast. Compared to quality PCM I hear DSD as sweeter but fuzzier. It's less focused and its top end less clear. Cymbals in particular give it away. DSD256 upsampling seemed to benefit focus. The operative word was 'seemed'. On this particular count the associated hoopla still felt more marketing stunt than demonstrable must have. My jury on that feature thus remained in stone-faced deliberation until I had more evidence.