Labarum;358884 Wrote: > Themis, why have you got an AV amp between a very expensive DAC and some > very smart speakers? Because it's a nice, smooth-sounding amp. :) I used to use the amp's dac before I got the Italian one. The couple SB3/Denon through-coax, was better than my old 640C CD player. But one day I found someone selling the North Star for about 500€ and I... couldn't resist. I won't go through the differences between the NS and the 3808, they are subtle but quite obvious for "heavy" music parts (with plenty of instruments). I've had plenty of hi-fi amps (and I still have a Marantz KI and a Cyrus), but the Denon sounds more than decent. I tried, occasionally, to upgrade the power-amp section, but none of the power amps that I listened to (four), below the 1200€ price tag, managed to drive my speakers better than the 3808. Even its phono section is sweet : so, I stick with it, at the moment. ;)
I know there are a lot of myths about A/V amps (I owned 4, the AVR-300 being one of them), some say that A/V amps made by specialized hifi firms are better sounding... well, I disagree. Today's A/V amps made by "commercial" firms like Denon, Yamaha, H/K etc have decent transformers, power sections, very good D/A converter implementations and so much more. And mostly : they sound musical. I have plenty of friends (hifi vendors or enthusiasts) who claim the contrary, but most of them never listened to a decent A/V amp in good conditions. And I don't care enough about their beliefs to prove them the contrary. :) -- Themis SB3 - North Star dac 192 - Denon 3808 - Sonus Faber Grand Piano Domus ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Themis's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=14700 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=54947 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
