Some people already do this. I wouldn’t call it modernizing it, but it’s more of an argument of integrated vs. separates. Both have their pros and cons. The pros for separates is that you get to individually control and upgrade each part of your chain and they all have their own separate power supply and job.
Some people see a huge appeal of buying an all-in-one box that does everything. It would look much cleaner, but again, you can’t upgrade one part of it.
This evening Vanessa Fernandez’ “use me” album was playing here, and there I sat, eyes closed and watering up, because I was concentrating on the fine textures in her voice. A realization was made: No matter how hard I try, I can really concentrate on only one specific element of the song at a time, i.e. Fernandez’ voice or a shaker at the far left side of the stage.
When I’m really listening to her voice, other elements in the song like the Bassline, Hi-Hat Strikes or strings make their presence known, but are somewhat blurred out, like when you take a picture of someone/something with a Bokeh effect. The concentration lies with the centerpiece, and all other background elements retain their silhouettes, but their textures and edges aren’t noticeable anymore. When the concentration is shifted to another element in the song, the focus changes to another object in the bokeh picture, and everything else is, again, molten down to a rough shape.
I heard the Canton Reference 2.2DC at the Munich High End show some years ago, and the effects described above were also there, however the textures and contours of whatever was in focus was simply defined to the point of stupidity. I know the Reference Jubilees have the potential to be just as good with the updated driver mounts, tweeter and tuned crossover, and I’d love to bring them there.
I’ve read up quite a bit on the Morpheus’ design philosophy and comparisons to the Adagio and the Denafrips Terminator. The Morpheus’ functionality as a variable gain Pre-Amp is the deciding factor for me, and I think it is going to be my next DAC. This way, I can use the Hugo2/Taurus MkII as a Headphone listening Setup.
Thank you for mentioning Sonnet! I wouldn’t have considered it if you didn’t
Will be curious on your thoughts if you go for it, should be pretty interesting