Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Your more then welcome Matt. Knowing what a great guy Merrill is I am sure he will be willing to loan his MA-1 to you again. But if the timing is off for you just let me know.

Wisnon, no this is a separate upgrade from the DSD128. The DSD128 will follow in a few months.

Matt,

Maybe you missed the last part of my post, the Berkeley Alpha Reference is now available.

If this about the best "Redbook" performance, you need to include the Alpha REF in your test.

Kana - yes, I saw that. Thank you.

I currently have the Lampizator Big6 (which is actually sold, just waiting for check to clear), Aeris, EA OverDrive, Meitner MA-1 and my old PSA PW2 in my room. The DirectStream is arriving Monday and the Aesthetix Romulus is incoming whenever it's ready and available. I will try to find a dealer who would lend me a well burned in Alpha Ref. If anyone knows of one, please let me know. I'm happy to listen if you, or anyone else, can arrange getting one to me.

I'm doing my best, but since I try to REALLY listen to each unit, each comparison takes a LOT of time. My current protocol is to listen to my 33 song playlist on each of 2 DAC's; and then repeat the same thing a few days later, listening to the other 1 one first. It works but I may try to cut down my listening list to 15 if I can.... I sometimes only listen to portions of a song, but if it sucks me in........

Ok. I just went through my playlist and cut down to 23 songs. I think that will be more manageable. I tried to remove more, but I want a broad selection of genres and I need one or 2 really well and really badly recorded pieces to see how the DAC handles those.

Thank you, Kana, for motivating me to do that!!