darrenyeats;240617 Wrote: > Do the expensive items sound more alike than the cheaper items? > Darren
Not IME. I have found that a lot of mid priced Dacs sound very similar: Lavry DA10 (I own one), Benchmark, Apogee and they also sound very close to some SS CDP of the same price range. Going up the food chain to the real world class CDPs like Opus 21, Wadia, Ayre, some Naim, Densen, Capitol, Meridian, Esoteric they all have a very strong personality and differ a lot from each other to the point than some people may love A and hate B while a lot of other think B is the best CDP ever. As an example - Meridians have a silky tonality and warmish bass, very pleasant but they loose some detail - Some Naim have great dynamics, but very little soundstage - Esoteric have loads of resolution, many people love that, but to me there is too much and sounds too hi-fiish - Opus 21 is my favourite with great soundstage, layers in music and great timing; the most "musical", whatever that means - Some Wadias are wonderful players, but only the top of the range with the TEAC tansport, but they are extremely expensive - I wish I could spend some time with some Aereo Capitol - Nave tried the Densen, but some people really love them So the theoretic assumption that better sources sounds the same is totally wrong in my opinion. There are hundred of ways of skinning a cat and of implementing a digital player, also people listen to different sorts of music, have different ears and taste Finally I have never heard a standalone DAC that can even remotely compete with the group of the best CDPs; jitter is a big problem and apparently the best solutions are the proprietary ones (as Patrick was implying earlier on) -- Vic ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Vic's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13795 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=39815 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
