MCD-500 DAC Capabilities

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by Gigo

Dear All,
Thank you for the all the warm greetings, it has been a pleasure to learn from all of you while building my system, a job that will never be finished, I learnt this too late

My system is as follows:
MC501 x 3
C2300 with
B&W 802D
B&W HTM2D
B&W 805S
Olive 4HD
Oppo 83SE
Onkyo 5007 AVR
Straightwire interconnects and speaker cables

Jim,
Thanks for the reply, so in a nutshell, it is not worth getting an additional MDA1000 (which is very close to the MCD500 DAC) as an upgrade to the Olive DAC.

Anyone compared the Olive DAC to either the Ayre QB9 or W4S DAC2?
I really do not want to start a new upgrade journey to find that I was better off with what I started with, unfortunately were I live and work right now as an expatriate in Saudi Arabia does not permit for any auditions !

Thanks again
Gigo

Gigi
Very nice set-up you have there. No I would not purchase the MDA-1000 if the Olive is the only unit you will be connecting to it. Sure the MDA might be a bit better but I am not sure how it would handle any 24/192 files you may get for your Olive.

Jim'

[schaefer11]

Welcome Gigo.

You have a great system there.

Jim's advice not to make a purchase will probably be the last time anyone here gives that type of advice. So hold on to your wallet!

[Jerome W]

Originally Posted by Still-One

Gigi
Very nice set-up you have there. No I would not purchase the MDA-1000 if the Olive is the only unit you will be connecting to it. Sure the MDA might be a bit better but I am not sure how it would handle any 24/192 files you may get for your Olive.

Jim'

I just found this thread Jim.
I have to disagree.

I listened closely to the Olive 4HD analog outputs and compared it to the Olive coax digital outputs through the MDA1000.
The MDA is in an other league. No slight differences but truly Night and Day.
This is not true with the Olive 6HD.
As for 24 / 192 in the MDA, I did not have a tune to make the test.
The MDA plays 24 / 96 and I suppose it is compatible with 24 / 192 since it upsamples everything to 768 kHz !

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by C220MC275

I just found this thread Jim.
I have to disagree.

I listened closely to the Olive 4HD analog outputs and compared it to the Olive coax digital outputs through the MDA1000.
The MDA is in an other league. No slight differences but truly Night and Day.
This is not true with the Olive 6HD.
As for 24 / 192 in the MDA, I did not have a tune to make the test.
The MDA plays 24 / 96 and I suppose it is compatible with 24 / 192 since it upsamples everything to 768 kHz !

Jérôme
You need to go back to his question and position. He noted that the general consensus is that the in DAC's MCD-500 and MDA-1000 are "very close". If that is the case my position was I see no purpose in spending $4k or so for a DAC with multiple inputs if the only source would be the Olive 4HD. I also stand by my tests that the single ended outputs of the 4HD were as good as the XLR of the MCD-500.

Jim