Maybe it IS all in the DAC chips
I’ve often pushed back against the idea of purchasing any piece of audio gear based on the parts contained, especially DAC’s. While the Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) itself is the key component, so much goes into making a good sounding product, like stream buffers/jittter removal, power supplies and analog output stage that I thought this could lead buyers astray.
Still, having done that, and still thinking that I correctly warned others to avoid buying just on DAC brands alone, I have found myself after many years, returning again to vintage Burr Brown based DACs and home theater processors.
Color me changed with experience.
I actually haven’t heard Magnetar or Reavon. I read reviews in HiFi mags that didn’t tell me anything useful. I am going by user reviews. I came close once to buying a Magnetar so I had done a lot of reading.
My understanding is that Magnetar was formed by the engineers that had designed the Oppo players. The Magnetar GI looks identical to the Oppo UI. In my case the DSD is output over HDMI into my Bryston DAC3 (which uses an AKM DAC chip). So the internal DAC is of secondary interest. |
@mahler123 , we’ll if it isn’t broken 😆. I have a handful of rock concerts on Blu-ray and I read the the Oppo limits the resolution due to licensing. Apparently the Dbob defeats the resolution restriction allowing full resolution to be sent in the digital domain to your DAC. Unfortunately I have a Yiggy and they don’t play together, so I never investigated further. I like Bryston gear as my buddy had a full suite before moving on to Mac. I live off his hand me downs. Regards , Mike B. |
