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Sony XA777ES plus Ack Dack?

I recently moved into a new house with a larger room for my system and have been attempting to eliminate the brightness I would associate with the room. I have bass panels, homemade room lenses, corner traps, etc that should alleviate the room anomolies, but still it seems to be edgy at times especially with CD source material not up to current standards. To me it sounds like the Ack Dack is a very anologue sounding Dac and may alleviate the brightness I'm hearing, but I'm wondering about using a $500 Dac with a $3,000 CD player. Will the Dac sound better than the Sony does by itself, or would I be better off just keeping the Sony. I do like SACD, so I would keep it irregardless. The rest of my system is B&W 801 S3, Bel Canto EV04, Melos Sha Gold Preamp, PS Audio P 300, Jena Lab Symphony & Penta Helix IC's, PS Audio Statement Biwire Sp cables and PS Audio Lab and Mini Lab cables. Lots of isolation devices also.
Finally, I never had any brightness problem in my old room, and it was only 12 x 14. The new room is 18 x 30 with higher ceilings. I'm not interested in changing anything but the digital back end. Maybe just adding the Ack Dack and using it on older, less than great sounding CD's would do the trick? Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks.
nodaker
sogood51
2,157 posts
 
Well, the Ack Dack can be had at a cheap enough price and could be re-sold at no>( very little ) loss.

I owned the XA-777es for a good while...edgy is not something it ever was in my system, laid-back would be a better discription.

I found the Sony to be an exceptional SACD player and a good cd player. An out-board DAC of your flavor may be a good idea.

That said: Your much larger room requires much more power to reach the spl's you enjoyed in the smaller room...my finger is pointing towards your amp.

Of course, room treatments are a good thing and the room itself could be the problem (along with the new speaker placement issue). Try some toe-in/out tweaks also...sometimes a degree of tilt-back adjustment can take a little edge off also.

No amount of treatment/tweaks can help an over driven amp though so lets hope that this is not the problem.

Dave
dopogue
1,773 posts
 
I have both units, plus a mildly modified Toshiba 3950. I've found that, on Redbook, the Toshiba/Ack dAck combo is more musical (to me) than the Sony alone. Using the Ack dAck with the Sony, there is a very slight improvement on most CDs, but the Ack dAck has no digital out, so it is difficult to use this setup when recording (yes, I could use the Toslink output on the Sony but prefer not to). Also, using the Toshiba as my primary CD transport may hopefully lengthen the life of the XA777, which I'm now using primarily as an SACD player. At least that's my rationale. I do like the Ack dAck, but it does require the discipline to turn the thing off when it's time to recharge the batteries. Good luck, Dave.
nodaker OP
17 posts
 
Thanks for the advice on the amp, but it's hardly breaking a sweat. It doesn't even get worked hard when it isn't in the bridged mode, so the amp would not be the problem, but thanks for the feedback. Mark.
dopogue
1,773 posts
 
Just a thought, but do you have any coupling/decoupling or resonance damping thingies under the Sony? I have the full-bore Mapleshade setup under mine (brass cones/maple block/isoblocks) and have lately been experimenting successfully with ... superballs. A friend has found these very helpful in reducing glare and brightness. Just put the superballs in Vibrapods or those carpet-protecting rubber/plastic things that go under furniture -- anything that will keep the superballs from rolling around. Sounds crazy, I know, but it's cheap and may be worth a try. Dave
nodaker OP
17 posts
 
Dave

Yes, I have all the cones and pucks and stuff :-) I have the Mapleshade setup under my preamp (w the 4" thick slab of maple) and under my amp I have Walker pucks with Mapleshade points. Under the CD I have those Final Lab Daruma which seem pretty good. Last night I put the casters back on my speakers (had Mapleshade cones under) and moved the speakers out some more from the back wall. This seems to have helped a great deal. I will keep trying different positions until I have it right. Thanks for the suggestions, they sure were possible causes, but I think I just have a difficult room, but eventually I will conquer it. Mark
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