Quote:
Originally Posted by Beatlebum
Riffer,
Tell me about your MD-209. Cost? What speakers you're pairing it with? How's the tuner in it? Overall impressions as this is a piece I am seriously considering.
Thanks in advance,
Tim
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Cost - I had a very generous trade in a dealt directly with the factory and the owner, so I don't think I can really come up with a number.
I have it with Totem Arro's due to space limitations. The MD-209 has plenty of excess power. I have a large fund for speaker upgrades, but I am loath to spend a lot of money on speakers in such a limited space. Maybe if Aerial Acoustics gets a dealer in the Torronto area I would change my mind
Tuner has the MD-108T's Rf section, and it is very good. The MD-209 replaced a MD-106T and Simaudio Moon i-5 combo and I would say the sound of the MD-209 is very similar to the combo with a lot more "body" to the music. A lot of it is obviously the extra power into the notoriously hard to drive Arro's, but it still was quite an improvement.
I would rate the DAC just below my Audio-gd Master 7. It just lacks that extra bit of richness that the Audio-gd has. I would note that a friend of mine picked up a used 108T that had the DAC board that was incidental to the transaction, as he was in it for the tuner. He tried it and considered getting rid of his Levinson DAC, but came to the same conclusion in the end - the Levinson just had a little "extra". I would say, given that the DAC upgrade is half the price of the Audio-gd or a used Levinson, so quite good for the price. Also, the USB is input is a nice simple one with no drivers to load and all that nonsense. I use it in preference to the Audio-gd's rather mundane USB-32.
I was at MD this summer to get some repairs done to the display and had some sort of Cap and tube upgrade done. It was a definite improvement in my purely subjective tests. It could also just as well been the placebo effect of finally being able to read the display after a couple of years having a broken one
I definitely recommend the MD-209. In a used one, I would keep to more recent examples. I had the display fail twice. On the second repair, they seemed to add some resistors or something. It's possible that MD has sourced a new display part. No big deal for me, as I am a half hour drive away in non-rush hour, but I wouldn't want to be without the unit for a month while it ships overseas.