Your Final System

“YFS” stands for Your Final System. The company’s founder, Kevin O’Brien, worked in the A/V installation business, doing audio consulting and building systems of all prices, until around 2011, when he decided he wanted to solve that problem once and for all. To that end, the YFS HD Ref3 LE “computer transport” ($15,500) combines an 8-core processor, 32GB of double data rate type 3 (DDR3) RAM, a 1TB solid-state drive (SSD), and a SOtM USB 3.0 PCI digital output card—all with heavily modified external power supply and audio circuitry.

“We tell people exactly what’s in it. They can put it together themselves, but ours will still sound better,” O’Brien said.

Listening to Miles Davis’s “So What,” I noted a sweet tone to Miles’ trumpet, good bass weight and definition, and very fine swing overall. Contributing to that sound were Constellation Audio’s Virgo preamp ($19,000) and Centaur power amp ($24,000), Meitner MA-1 DSD DAC ($7000), Von Schweikert VR-44 Aktive loudspeakers ($26,000/pair), and YFS’s own cables and interconnects.

Source : stereophile[dot]com