Digital Front Ends......

This came from the Record Player thread, but I was just interested in other member's thoughts on top digital sources (well, CD players) - we all know about the Chord DAC64, but what sort of money is it necessary to spend to get first class results from Red Book? The common consensus is that CD reproduction has come on leaps and bounds since its inception, but are there any old(er) pieces out there that still punch their weight? (As an example, what about the DPA SX512, designed by the same man as the Chord, but on an unlimited budget, with a resultant retail cost of nearly £10,000). Equally, have transports moved on that much? - the Denon CDC-3520 player I brought recently weighs 17kg, and has what seems to be a fantastically engineered and built transport section - I've yet to try an external DAC to see what it does.

 

Simon,

I use the SX128 DAC and it is very good indeed IMO. I have briefly had it up against the DAC64 and actually preferred it to the newer DAC 64 (although I would like to have the DAC64 at home for a better comparison).

I have also compared it to a CDS3 and I think it run it very close indeed, and with my new digi interconnect I would not be surprised if it betters the Naim player. I suspect the SX512 would be superb if you can find one.

So we can probably agree dpa dacs were a bit special, but what of the others? Old wadias can still cut the mustard (with a few tweaks under the hood). WM uses a 10 year old wadia DAC which is modded to hell, and it aint half good.

Other guys use CAL tube DACs which are reputedly very good never heard one though.

Regarding transports, anything with a Teac VRDS transport. Add some better power supplies and a clock and away you go.

Cheers, Robbo

 

Simmon, if i was starting again, and buying (yet another dac ) I would seriously consider a MSB Platunium Link dac, simply stunning (with the right leads and transport) is a amazingly good, musical/dynamic and hifi as well.
I prefer the older wadia's purely on a musical point of view, the newer onesd are also very good, just not want I'm looking for at the moment, The Audio Areo dac is very good in it's own way also, the dac 64 is ok, I'll get lynched for saying it's hard, so I won't (other than that a decent off board psu helps no end along with a reworked analogue stage, but the MSB (plat) destroys it and then some, and a free upsampler thrown in with the stunning 3 times red book 132.3khz upsample plus a whole host of plug and play up grades. but there are plenty of good ones to choose from. WM

 

I think there's a huge range of prices of digital front ends with not necessarily a corresponding difference in quality.

There are many people who have comparatively cheap digital front ends like the DAC64 (£1900 new) and Perpetual Tech P1-A & P3-A combo (about £1800 new in the UK - much less in the US) who have compared them to the full £20K+ dCS setup and preferred what they have. Indeed, one of the guys on Audio Asylum used to use an ML 390S CDP (about £7K I think) and now just uses it to drive his DAC64 which he says is head and shoulders above it in terms of sound quality - since he still uses the 390S as a transport it's not as if he couldn't have afforded something more expensive.

My mate in Portugal who recently also got a DAC64 had been looking for a digital upgrade for a while and had tried a lot of gear in the £5-6K range and was blown away with the DAC64 - it murdered everything else he had heard.

So, IMO £2-3K is all you need to get amongst the best digital sound available (at retail prices - much less s/h). I'd seriously question the benefit of paying a lot more than that.

Michael.

 

I tend to agree, but I still have a hankering for a big Wadia

 

For about £450( laughable )you should be able to get a cal audio lab,alpha,these use tubes,and are simply stunning,used with a good transport it will match players in the 2-3k price bracket.

 

Good question Simon, some answers I was hoping to see myself in the other thread.

At the risk of cross contaminating this thread, I'd say that the number of TT system I've heard which I've liked and would like to own have far out weighed those for CD fronted systems.

Certainly for me, the minimum I reckon I could get away with spending and still be very happy with the results would be a second hand DPA CD front-end of some sort. For an off the shelf non-sense configuration, I was very impressed when I first heard Robbo's set-up. One of the few CD set-up's I'd describe as being close to analogue (because analogue studio tape and top-end TTs are my references for hi-fi sound).

For a one box (off the shelf) solution, I've still yet to hear something that does it as good for cheaper than a Wadia 861. The older Wadia's are supposed to be the ones to get apparently, but I've not heard any (in their el natural un-modded state ).

Chord DAC64 has also impressed me, I've heard this DAC "not" sounding "hard" in more systems than I've heard it sounding rough... and to me it still wasn't that rough... Does seem to mate well with say Mircomega or TAG transports for example.

Just because a DAC or transport is old, doesn't mean it can't cut the mustard with contemporary kit. Apart from the names already mentioned, I've been very happy with my 2nd hand Accuphase DP-90 transport, which was first launched all the way back in 1992 and retailed back then for a shade over £10k here in the UK . Bought mine in 2002 for £2k... Accuphase ceased production of this model back in 1998 so the guy who traded this unit in at the dealer where I bought it from (he was upgrading to a dCS Verdi transport) must have bought one of the last ones ever made. It's built like a battleship and at second hand prices represents good value for money IMHO and compares well with contemporary transports... It's innards aren't bad either according to someone who took this player to bits to install a few mods, and that is praise indeed from that person.

 

Well, who says that CD transports don't make one iota of a difference, or maybe I'm just using a poorly designed, woefully outdated and overpriced DAC, perhaps?

I spent last week putting up with an old Marantz CD16 that I sometimes use in a second system, using it as a transport to feed the dCS boxes whilst the normally resident Accuphase DP-90 was sent away to have its innards tweaked. On the menu was the fitting of the latest "Clock 4" from Trichord along with a new power supply for this clock module regulated by something called a "Never Connected" . A few other bits of fine tuning were also carried out to add a bit more icing to the cake.

Now, the clock crystal and power supply regulator caps on the Clock 4 need another week and half to run in apparently, but holy sh!te! I must do a double take and look inside the CDT to see if the original innards haven't been completely removed and replaced with entirely different bits. An old cliche, but it's true "who went through and replaced all the CDs in my collection with decent re-masters without me looking!". :MILD:

 

Henry, seems you are enjoying that naff, badly implemented and grim second rate medium even more now, glad you liked Omiga Audio's slight readjustment of the Accuphase Sir. WM

 

I'm bringing my Planet 2000 up with my speakers when I visit you tomorrow, w-m.

Can you work any magic just by looking at it in the right way?

Steve

 

I left my Teac T1 with WM yesterday to receive the same little performance boost

Michael.

 

I wish the Planet MK1 had enough space inside the case for this upgrade

 

Ah Dom, but are you really that worried? After all, when you get that CDS2, you'll be the one that has the last laught... or will you?

Seriously though, you might be able to get just the Clock board in there. Definitely no room for the dedicated power supply which IMO is the most significant part of the upgrade. It's a bit weird, but I've been able to listen to and really enjoy CDs much more than before at tmes of the day when I previously hadn't due to bad mains - the times it's sounded the worst over the past 2 days has been in the small hours - complete ass about face that one!