jh901 wrote: > The top digital players are manufactured by dCS and their "ring DAC" is > pretty much the king. For redbook only, the Naim CD-555 is world class. > Those and many, many other players (excluding the many outboard DACs) > have sound quality that will surpass the sound quality of the > Transporter by a huge margin. Here's a shortlist: > > > dCS "Ring DAC" (Scarlatti, Paganini, Debussy, Puccini) > Naim DAC (CD-555) > CH Precision C1 DAC > APL DAC-M (Designer: Alex Peychev) > Light Harmonic Da Vinci > Playback Designs MPD-5 > MSB Diamond DAC IV > EMM Labs DAC2 > Burmester (069, 089, 113) > Wadia 9 series > Audio Research Reference DAC > Simaudio 750D (built in transport but mainly a DAC) > Zanden 5000S > > ...
Of that list I've compared the EMM DAC2 with a DAC even lower than the Transporter, honestly neither myself or friend could discern a difference when single-blinded listening one afternoon (about 4 hours total listening with breaks in between) - this was of course on good amp and speakers. I'm really suspicious how this list came about... Zanden 5000S? Really? After these kind of results? http://www.stereophile.com/content/zanden-5000-mkivsignature-da-converter-2000-premium-cd-transport-measurements If John Atkinson's measurements are correct (assuming of course we might not hear these limitations), I would not be happy with this - not exactly SOTA for a $15K DAC! No hi-res either? I cannot imagine ANY DAC based on the TDA-1541 be considered 'best' in 2012! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Archimago's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2207 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=96407 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
