This paragraph from Linear Tube Audio's website description of their new Aero DAC sets the tone for the story I'm about to tell. "After trying various options, we chose the Analog Devices AD1865 R2R DAC chip, which is sometimes called the 'vinyl DAC,' for its organic sound. It is a non-oversampling DAC, with no digital filters. The AD1865 is much-loved by audiophiles and is used by at least one hi-fi company in a flagship DAC costing over $150,000."

Check the forums and you find that the AD1865 chip is also a heavy DIY favorite. Home brewers are attracted to this discontinued, "obsolete" 18-bit chip for its easy implementation and unprocessed, music-friendly sound.

Loudspeaker company GoldenEar Technology was founded in 2010 by audio industry veteran Sandy Gross after he left Definitive Technology. With a design team based in Canada that included Martyn Miller, who is still GoldenEar's senior acoustic engineer, GoldenEar produced a series of relatively affordable speakers that garnered favorable reviews in Stereophile. The most recent of these was the BRX (Bookshelf Reference X) standmount, which I reviewed in September 2020 and have been using as one of my reference loudspeakers since.

The BRX was the last GoldenEar speaker to be produced under Sandy Gross's aegis; in January 2020, the company was acquired by The Quest Group, the parent company of cable company AudioQuest. At the 2023 High End Munich show, Quest announced a new GoldenEar speaker, the floorstanding T66, said to be the first model in a new series.