Is the EMM DAC6e or DCC2 /CDSD the best out there?

"The number of EMM dacs currently for sale on Audiogon (8?) might lead one to believe that it isn't "the best out there."

IMO that is a somewhat far stretched assumption on your part.

Bookner, Mikelavigne visited me at CES. I played the promised DVD-A made directly from $25K vinyl setup for him. He agreed that it was exactly as the vinyl was playing there with no sign of digital or negative artifacts.

I will soon take advantage of his generous invitation and visit him with my DVD-A recording suite and my Digital Front end. There will be two objectives:

1. To see if 96KHz/24bit recording out of his vinyl setup will sound the same on A-B test.

2. To see how his EMM Labs gear will do against my re-engineered Esoteric UX-1. Well, actually, I already know the answer to this question since we already had an A-B test with the latest EMM Labs gear and the UX-1 at a local audiophile's house last weekend.

Stay tuned!

Alex

Alex,

Can you tell more about your "re-engineered" UX-1? What are the differences and what does it better than a standart UX-1?

Muratc,

The re-engineered UX-1 has the following done to it so these are the differences with the original:

1. Heavily upgraded original power supply. Another (third) R-Core power transformer added with 16 additional linear power supplies/regulators.

2. Heavily upgraded and re-designed Digital Signal Processing board with completely new own designed Master Clock, signal routing, new passive components and new DSD to PCM converter working at 176.4KHz/24bit. The original uses older chip working at 88.2KHz/24bit DSD to PCM conversion. Please note that the DA Converter chips I am using are capable of direct DSD processing, but it did not bring as good results compared to DSD to PCM conversion, sorry to say.

3. World's first 211KHz/32bit Upsampling with second Master Clock. The DACs are “seeing” 211KHz/bit at all times regardless of what format is played.

4. Industry's first implementation of the flagship DAC chips by AKM of Japan. There are 10 DACs per channel for extremely low noise and distortions.

5. Unique Hybrid Attenuator with 0.5db step and remote control. This eliminates the need of a preamp if Digital is the only source.

6. Transformer coupled Class "A" tube output stage using the 6H30 super triodes. Custom output transformers made by Lundahl.

It is hard to explain what it does better than a standard UX-1. It is totally different in every respect; there is no sign of the original UX-1 sound. You really need to hear it in order to understand and believe what it is. This is the reason we have named it NWO-1.

Please note that although the Video capabilities are preserved, the Multichannel outputs are removed. It becomes Stereo only. Of course, the digital output can be connected to an external processor for Dolby and DTS decoding which ensures Multichannel DVD Video.

Regards,
Alex

Wow, quite a few mods... Who does it?