Aqua
La Voce S3 Discrete
Introduced 2018$4,750 MSRP
The La Voce S3 Discrete is an Italian-made, filterless R2R ladder DAC using a proprietary FPGA-based, sign-magnitude ladder converter with no digital filtering or oversampling stage (Aqua official). Its modular AQ-i input platform lets owners select and upgrade digital input boards (AES/EBU, coax, TOSLINK, or fiber) independently of the core DAC and USB modules (Aqua datasheet).
MSRP
$4,750
Used market · Good
$2,550
-46% vs MSRP
as of Sep 1, 2026MSRP to used market
From $4,750 at launch to $2,550 today.
Specifications
- Price
- $4,750 MSRP
- THD n
- <0.1% at 1 kHz, 0 dB
- Weight
- 7 kg
- Dimensions
- 450 × 310 × 100 mm (W × D × H)
- Output level
- RCA unbalanced 2.4 Vrms; XLR balanced (asymmetrical) 4.8 Vrms
- Digital inputs
- RJ45 AQlink (I2S), BNC coax S/PDIF, USB; modular AQ-i slot for AES/EBU, RCA coax, AT&T ST fiber, or TOSLINK
- Format support
- PCM up to 24-bit/384kHz (AQlink/USB) or 24-bit/192kHz (AES/coax/optical); DSD64/DSD128 via DoP
- DAC architecture
- Proprietary discrete multibit sign-magnitude R2R ladder, FPGA-based, no digital filter, 1× oversampling
- Output impedance
- RCA 100 Ω; XLR 200 Ω
- Frequency response
- 20 Hz–22 kHz, +0.5/−0.5 dB
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