Sonore v Mcintosh, Bryston, Naim, etc. into MX150


Dear All,

I'm in the process of upgrading my music server and welcome any opinions thoughts about the direction in which I'm heading. Some additional context, in that I've just upgraded my system:

Mcintosh: MC452 (2 X 450w) L & R
MC303 (3 x300w) Centre and two surrounds)
MC452 (for a second zone, 2ch)

MX150 (Pre/Pro and AV control)

I'm seriously considering a Sonore box as my primary audio source. Until yesterday i was either getting a) Naim network player, b) Bryston BDP-1, or the c) Oppo Universal player with HDD storage (which I acknowledge is a slightly different beast to the other 2).

I have approx 2 TB of mostly uncompressed music in Flac, Wav, DTS and other bits n pieces.

I've read all the stuff I can, now have a rudimentary understanding of what a Lynx AES is and it all sounds great. But based on your experience, will the audio performance/sonic purity be directly comparable to say name brand stuff we all know and love (the audiophile integrity for which we take for granted) - like Mcintosh, Mark Levinson, Naim, Bryston, etc. Or even new guys like Oppo, which is apparently pretty good too.

The MX150 has full 24 Bit 192 KHz capabilities through its AES/EBU input. There is no clock function output out of the MX150 so the Sonore input will suffice? Any thoughts on sound quality given that the DAC internal to the MX150 is a Burr Brown with the Lynx AES into the Burr Brown?

Would welcome any opinions on this and particularly anyone with a load of mac stuff, in particular MX150 and what they think of this approach.

What a cool forum.

Jim
(in London,UK btw)
nuzum
" The MX150 has full 24 Bit 192 KHz capabilities through its AES/EBU input."

I believe you will be best served with Music Vault Diamond server which has very low jitter thru Lynx AES16 with AES/EBU output. I saw its ad here on Audiogon with all details. Plus Neal is one of the nicest people around and he will help you with set up and other questions

Simon