I was gushing about the HEDD's ADC + processing features, which are beautifully realized. The DAC in the HEDD seems to be designed with the same philosophy as the ADC, which unlike what is desirable to many in an ADC is not appropriate for an accurate reproduction of audio fed into a master DAC. I am guessing for a two channel master A/D/A converter most users would like to see a hifi DAC. My Apogee DA16-X DACs are not what I would call "accurate" either, but I'm not using those as 2-mix reference converters. If anything, for DACs used for multichannel audio for the purpose of feeding an analog mixer or summing box, creating a euphonically "colored" sound could be highly desirable, at least with certain styles of music (esp. rock music).
Nicholas