How would Chord DAC64 compare to RA Opus21?

Re: Re: Re: I say "ee"ther, you say "eye"ther...

Originally posted by GrahamN

If you tend towards the values Naim hold dear, your assessment would maybe tend more to that of jtc than with mine.
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I am yet to hear a Naim player :rolleyes:, or anything Naim for that matter.

Mind you, I don't listen to anything classical, mostly alternative, rock and some jazz.. no R&B please :D.
 
Yogus,

An Advantage S1 is worth an earwig too, again built in vol control, same dac chipset as the wadia 301 bb1704's, switcable on/off upsampler, isolated digital/anaolgue supply rails. A to D simm slot inside, it has the drive and life the 301 doesn't, same detail and weight, not quite as good in the middle, but a damn fine player, and it's well built too. Wm
 
Be a little wary of the Opus 21, some of them still kick out significant mechanical noise, could be an issue if it will reside near the listening seat other than that I think it is a good sounding player.

As everyone is pitching in alternatives ... don't forget to get a listen to the Densen 400XS at £2500. Has lots of speed and power and sounds very analogue in the best possible way so it has good timbral accuraccy and doesn't tend to shout "I am a CD player" all the time. I believe they have solved any QC issues they did have (it would have been nice for them to let people know they were beta testing the first ones ;->)


Cheers

Jason
 
Re: I say "ee"ther, you say "eye"ther...

Originally posted by GrahamN
Yogus,

JTC and I have disagreed about this before...and no doubt will so again...but the Opus21 was quite simply the worst 3k player I have ever heard ;) (even worse than something from Naim). I managed to listen to it for all of about 10 minutes before I had to turn it off to save my ears. So maybe it was a bad one (it was about the first to be imported into the UK) but....no chance. The 301 on the other hand had soul, presence, believability like nothing else I heard in its price bracket. And I'm sorry Michael, but I thought the DAC64 was only just about OK, but didn't offer enough over the Meridian 508.24 I was upgrading from to justify its purchase price (and I much preferred the NuVista, although that fell down fairly badly when it came to detail)....whereas the 301 would have done it without question if it weren't for that abortion of an ergonomic design. Still, big bruv solved that :D
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This post and others like it in this thread shows the futility of arguing about the merits and demerits of many of these CD players especially when many of them were heard in different system set-ups. As we can see, one man's 'crap' is turning out to be another man's 'jewel' in his own system so what's there to argue about? I have heard most of the CD players mentioned in this thread and have now come to the conclusion that theese CD players must be "chameleons" as they change their musical colours based on their surroundings.:D Which of them is better? None - as they all deliver based on their owners' preferences - preferences which sometimes translate into price differences amounting to hundreds if not thousands of euros, dollars, pounds etc.

Originally posted by yogus

That bad huh? Looks like I'll have to avoid the Opus21 since there's no way of getting an audition. May check out the Ayre CX-7 as another option.
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Yogus,

I have heard the Ayre CX-7 in my system and it is the most disgusting sounding player that I have ever had the displeasure of listening to. It's timing was way off Swiss watch standards and it's bass was bloated and lacked definition. Voices were recessed and it really put the word "digital" into it's performance as it sounded so hard and metallic. So are you sure that the Ayre CX-7 is a good option?;)



Enjoy the music,

Lawrie.:D
 
must say i too wasn't keen on the ayre cdp when i heard it. just too bland. best i heard on my cdp listening trips was the cec tl2 / dx71. enough drive to satisfy me as a naimie but with detail and texture to boot. it did cost about 4k though. that said the tl51 transport brings the price down a lot and is almost as good - even though transports make no difference.
cheers


julian
 
Re: I say "ee"ther, you say "eye"ther...

Originally posted by GrahamN
And I'm sorry Michael, but I thought the DAC64 was only just about OK, but didn't offer enough over the Meridian 508.24 I was upgrading from to justify its purchase price
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Fair enough, but even you wouldn't describe it as "crude & wrong" :rolleyes: . There isn't a single serious CD player or DAC to which those words could be honestly applied.

Michael.
 
Originally posted by julian2002
must say i too wasn't keen on the ayre cdp when i heard it. just too bland. best i heard on my cdp listening trips was the cec tl2 / dx71. enough drive to satisfy me as a naimie but with detail and texture to boot. it did cost about 4k though. that said the tl51 transport brings the price down a lot and is almost as good - even though transports make no difference.
cheers


julian
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Err, Julian!

My comments regarding the Ayre CX-7 were just tongue-in-cheek comments given that Jogus seemed to be giving up on auditioning the Opus 21 partly due to the negative comments about the player on the board. So, I wondered if my negative comments of the Ayre CX-7 would prompt him to give up on auditioning it as well or whether he would use his own two ears and give it a bash.;)

Anyway, contrary to my earlier comments, the Ayre CX-7 is a detailed and engaging player that does the pace and timing thing very well. The bass is well defined and no, CDs don't sound hard and metallic when played on it and nor did it sound "bland" in my system. Again, I can only suggest the "chameleon" effect of audio components like CD players which can sound "engaging" in one system but "bland" in another. Go figure!!



Enjoy the music,

Lawrie.:D
 
Originally posted by julian2002
:zzzz: :zzzz: :zzzz: :zzzz: :zzzz: :zzzz:
eh whazza...
cheers


julian
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Please stay awake and pay attention laddie:D

Personally, I find the discussion about high end CD players quite amazing these days. People's opinions are so wildly at odds with each others, whilst the differences between all of the players mentioned is to my ears minimal. It smacks of nothing more than "Mine's better than your's mentality".

Michael's right to a certain degree, you'd be hard pushed to find an expensive CD player these days that was anything other than good, although to my ears the CDX2 does sound very different. It sounds excellent on a few discs, and totally unlistenable on many others. I cannot see how this kind of presentation can appeal to listeners with large CD collections - surely they need something that plays the majority of their collection well?

But come on guys, the difference between say a Dac64 and a Wadia isn't night and day , not musically speaking at any rate. Is it?
 
Actually, half the reason I'm giving up on the Opus 21 b/c i couldn't be arsed shipping it from the US, paying customs, and then likely having to ship it back for a 5% restocking fee :D.

Plus, the polarized opinions don't help, but I reckon you'd get that with just about anything. MILD:

And, yep, I've heard the Ayre CX-7, with Gryphon Callisto -> ATC SCM35A and thought it sounded great. Just hadn't had the chance to audition it in my system.

I've only heard the following in my system, since I've only been auditioning amps up until now:

- Simaudio Nova - wasn't worth changing my Alpha 9 CDP for, but tasty sounding nonetheless. Lot's of life and bounce. Also, heard the Eclipse, but in my system context, is probably a bit silly. Plus, it's out of my price bracket here in Oz.
- Arcam FMJCD33 - made me wonder why all the amps I was listening to sucked... then i realised it was the CDP
- Chord DAC64 - sounded the best so far, but it was the end of the day, and I was tired.. and I think the dealer wanted my out of there :D

I still have a lot of others to try out.

Bear in mind that prices here in Oz are totally out of whack with what you guys get in the UK, since some things are a bargain, and somethings aren't. US gear is especially cheaper here than UK!:
 
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Where are you?

half the reason I'm giving up on the Opus 21 b/c i couldn't be arsed shipping it from the US, paying customs, and then likely having to ship it back for a 5% restocking fee
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Where are you then? You can buy it via a few dealers in the UK, for instance - so no need to ship. Of course, with the way the £ is right now it would probably work out a bit cheaper to buy from the US but perhaps RA wouldn't do it...

Or if you're not too far away you're welcome chez jtc for a listen - I'm up near Edinburgh.

jtc
 
although to my ears the CDX2 does sound very different.
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I borrowed one from Cornflake when I had the Meridian 588, out of curiosity, and I couldn't tell any difference between it and the Meridian at all, tbh.

Before anyone jumps up and down, I don't believe all CDPs sound the same, although I do think you'd have to be deeply unlucky to spend more than a few hundred quid and get something positively bad.

-- Ian
 

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