Linn Akurate DSM

[Antoine]

Akurate DS just can not be better than Aurender, because Aurender is a pure transport while Akurate is a streamer - transport + DAC.

I guess you believe less is always more. Not necessarily true.

There you compared Aurender + Devialet's DAC and Akurate DS. I am not surprised that Akurate was better than Aurender+D200 DAC. Akurate's internal DAC is really great. And in addition Linn's internal transport connected to the DAC via I2S nterface (not USB), thus the jitter level is considerably smaller here.

No, he compared Aurender + Devialet's DAC vs. Akurate DS + Devialet's ADC and Devialet's DAC as all analog inputs on the Devialet are digitized and later converted back to analog.

I2S is no magic bullet, it is not necessarily always better than other implementations, it depends on the quality of the implementation. But yes, short device internal I2S connections, which are optimized by the designer, tend to be better with less effort.

If you try Akurate's digital output I doubt you will be satisfied.

Then why worry about it and use it if the analog output sounds better (which is commonly known for these Linn devices), the device comes with both.