ralphpnj;378509 Wrote: > I didn't mean to imply that super expensive DACs ($5K and up) were > somehow "better" than the more reasonably priced DAC's ($1.5K and down) > rather that I'd like to read about the results of coupling the lowly > SqueezeBox with one of these mega-buck DACs. As I stated previously, I > believe that the SqueezeBox/mega-buck DAC combo would give most, if not > all, of the mega-buck CD transport/DAC combos a good old fashioned ass > whooping. Which of course would wreck havoc in the world of high end > audio and might even bring their carefully built house of cards > crashing to the ground. Well, I did the experiment the other day with a high-end (expensive, that is) dac: Audiomat Maestro (5500 euros). In my opinion, at this point, there's not enough difference (translate: near to none) with a more modestly-priced dac (my Northstar, for instance). It seems as if the SB3 "limits" the performance of the dac. Similar listening sessions of some acquaintances (with a Lavry DA2002 (8500$) and with other similarly-priced dacs) come to the same conclusion: there's a clear difference between an SB3 and a high-end CD transport.
So, I could be mistaken, but I ended up coming to the conclusion that, beyond the 1500-2000$ limit you'll need a Transporter to get out the most of (and justify) the coupling with an expensive separate dac. Perhaps it's just a problem of clock, who knows. Note that I'm talking about the stock SB3. But, mid-priced dacs continue to evolve, and, who knows, probably in a couple of years the situation may change, with SB4... -- 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=57441 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
