Soulnote’s D-1N has won the award for DAC of the Year in Australia’s Sound + Image 2025 awards.
Priced at £5400 the D-1N is the first of three DAC’s in the Soulnote product line up and this entry level model has gone down a storm in the short time we have been a Soulnote dealer.
As with all Soulnote products emphasis is firmly placed on high performance whilst offering excellent value for money and the D-1N doesn’t disappear in either area, it is a hugely capable DAC and it performs well beyond the price of admission.
Dynamics, timing, musicality and naturalness are all key standouts for me, when fed with a sensible source the D-1N is a very strong product and it is a really joy to work with in the demonstration room. With a Melco N100 connected via USB either streaming Qobuz or playing stored files you’d be forgiven for assuming you were listening to something a lot more costly, the sound has a real maturity about it.
The Soulnote chief designer is the famed Hideki Kato who is a strong believer in non-oversampling DAC’s and that option is available on each of Soulnote models including the D-1N, with a couple of button pushes on the front panel you can engage NOS mode which bypasses any oversampling, although it can easily switched into oversampling mode with if required. This is very much down to taste and the system, I personally find NOS mode to be more organic and engaging compared to OS mode.
Digital inputs are plentiful with USB-B, AES-EBU and 2 x RCA SPDIF so there is no shortage of options for connecting either a CD transport or Network Streamer/ Server, analogue outputs are available on both RCA and XLR.
This award is hugely deserved by the guys at Soulnote, they are very much a brand of the moment whose stock is most definitely on the rise. The D-1N is a great DAC and if you are looking to upgrade your DAC to something new this is a model that should be right at the top of your audition list.
Please get in touch to arrange a demonstration, our D-1N is never too far from the demo room!
