Audio Research Reference DAC

[loctorwabbit]

Thanks Ivan!

[ariess]

[QUOTE="loctorwabbit;694975"]Thanks jpgr4blu! : ) interesting that you're at the crossroads of going over to streaming. i sold my electrocompanied CD player and got the AMR thinking i'd 'cleanup' the house and never need to buy another cd again..... It didnt work!!!! At the back of my mind, and confirmed on listening to the aesthetix romulus and CD9 comparisons with their on board DAC vs on board CD player, the CD player always wins. whether it be streamed tidal or ripped redbook.


I find the same thing! I was surprised but the pace and timing on my CD source (CD9) beats any streaming I have tried including a NAS
fed into the Ref DAC. The latter is still very good, just not as musical as the CD9 with a red book CD

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[jpgr4blu]

Thanks guys. Very interesting. I've heard many say that streaming can be the best quality and my favorite DACs so far are the high end Lampizator and high end MSB--I much prefer them to the DCS sound. But MSB in any configuration that I like is 2 mucho $. I'll also note that I have never heard a cd player for redbook that can beat the Spectral Pro. Maybe now if cds are encoded with MQA, the Meridian will. Until then......

[bmichels]

Does someone has news about the DSD upgraded RefDAC ?
Also has the iPAD software baan improved since last year ?

thanks

[Biggar]

Here's a tip for people looking to extend the lives of the DAC8 in the age of USB streamers. As you know, because the DAC8 is oriented to Macs & PCs, it will not 'listen' to a USB streamer such as the Aurender N100H. The Bryston BUC-1 digital to digital converter solves the problem. It takes the USB signal from the streamer and outputs it as Coax, XLR or BNC. I hooked it up tonight and it's a pretty fantastic little piece of kit. It's like all Bryston stuff and it passes through a pure (seemingly) jitter free signal.