@charles007100 lol that’s a good one.
I see you sitting in your listening chair and the turntable getting dusty…lol…
Does anyone have a digital system that is as involving as their analogue front end?
I have a good analogue front end. Not stratuspherically good but good enough for this comparison. VPI Prime Signature 21 turntable, Pass Labs XP-25 pono preamp, Pass Labs XP-30 preamp and Hovland Radia amp. It has a lovely, very involving sound. On the right recording, I just drop everythng and am drawn in to listen.
My streamer, on the other hand, is decent but not spectacular. It is better than my CD player, but it is not jaw-dropping like my analogue front-end. My question is this: does anyone have a high-end, tier-one streamer (dCS Bartok Apex, Lumin X2, or something like them) that can rival a good analogue system?
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My turntable will certainly get less use, which means I won't have to retip my cartridges every year or so. The break-in I did overnight helped to smooth the treble. The Meitner MA3i is almost like a different streamer. I can hear a touch of the old Meitner's smoothness, but the upgrade is so much tighter and controlled. The mid-range is not bloated which made the MA3 sound seductive. The MA3i has a straight-forward midrange that does not need bloating. It reminds me of an ARC LS 22 preamp I bought in the 90's. It's midrange was so seductive I could not hear that its treble was bright and its bass bloated. It took a review from the late-great Wes Phillips from Stereophile for me to begin hearing those flaws, and then that was all I could hear. Time for a new preamp. Wes Phillips suggested the CJ Premiere 14 and I owned that for years. My own ear was not as developed 30 years ago. I was just beginning to hear things. Anyway, I will enjoy testing the streamer out today. And yes, no records today. Although, I think @audphile1 has said recently that certain records sounded better than the streamer. I think that will be true, if only because I own premiere recordings I can't find on Qobuz. |
It will continue to improve @audio-b-dog but no reason to not enjoy it while it’s breaking in. |
I can't bypass the preamp because I have an analogue section. Also, I have a very good preamp. It's the three box Pass XP-30. Also, I can do a lot of experimenting with my ears, but not so much with my body. I'd have to be crawling around in a 20" space behind my racks to hook the Meitner to the amp. I don't do a lot of testing that requires physical work. I'm playing Eric Clapton's unplugged. A lot of acoustic guitar with transcient attacks on the strings. It sounds perfect. The only place I've found the MA3i lacking at this point is with shimmering cymbals. I have both the album (all analogue reissue) of Bill Evans "Waltz for Debbie." The first cut has a lot of cymbal decays. I don't know if any DAC at this point in time could capture that perfectly. If you have the Bill Evans album you can test it out. If you don't and you have a turntable, you should buy the album. It's so involving, I just want to sink into it. |
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