France’s YBA presents the new Genesis S2 Streamer DAC, a combination of a music server and network player.
YBA – which is short for Yves Bernard André, the developer behind the French company – has been around since 1971. From its stables comes the new YBA Genesis S2 Streamer DAC. Among other things, you will find a 1 TB SSD in it, which immediately forms the basis for the server side of functionality. On the one hand, you can place your own content on the SSD, but it is also a buffer for streaming music. As the operating system, the manufacturer has chosen a modified and audio-optimized version of Android. Music services such as Tidal, Qobuz, Deezer and Spotify are supported, but UPnP/DLNA, Apple AirPlay and Bluetooth are also available of course. Two power supplies are in use: a switching one for the computer side of things and a toroidal transformer-based linear power supply for the analog circuits.
More than enough inputs and outputs
The beating heart of the YBA Genesis S2 Streamer DAC consists of a pair of AKM AK4497EQ-DACs. These are assisted by an FPGA, KDS quartz oscillators and capacitors from Panasonic. The maximum achievable quality via PCM is 32 bit / 768 kHz and DSD up to and including DSD512. Should you still need it, there is also support for MQA. Regarding outputs, you have the choice of 2 x cinch and 1 x XLR and four digital (S/PDIF optical and coax, BNC and AES/EBU) if you want to use the device as a streaming bridge. Furthermore, there are several inputs: USB-B, S/PDIF optical and coax and two USB-A inputs for use with external data carriers.
The YBA Genesis S2 Streamer DAC has a price tag of €6500.