How did you decide on the TT2? What did you compare it with?
I compared the Chord TT2 with my present DAC - a Bel Canto DAC eONE 1.5. I also listened to the Chord MScaler by itself connected to the internal DAC of a Denon AVR. Then I listened to TT2 and MScaler stacked together on the same Denon setup. The TT2 by itself sounded smooth and devoid of digital glare but adding the MScaler removes all traces of digital glare (which I thought was already gone with the TT2 alone) and you are left with exceeding smoothness. But alas - buying both together was a financial challenge for me. I'll have to consider the MScaler as a future upgrade.
I compared the headphone output of the TT2 to my current balanced mos-fet DIY amp. Ganda ng output ng TT2, thanks to its DAC. And also due to its powerful and clean sounding analog output stage.
This TT2 DAC/headphone amp is all about timing. Chord's DAC designer Robb Watts is on to something - he starts with a knowledge of psycho-acoustics and designs his DACs around his experiments which according to him shows that human hearing can be affected to a surprisingly large degree by even infinitesimally small timing errors on the starting and stopping of musical notes (transients). Check his lectures on Youtube.
I also listened to Ted Smith and his lectures on the PS Audio's Direct Stream DAC, which he designed. I guess I was more convinced by Robb's more detailed and sensible lecture. Also I heard from reliable sources that PSAudio is on the warm side and given that my stereo system (Harbeth / Accuphase) is on the warm side, I went with Chord.