verdantaudio
Responses from verdantaudio
| Best Dedicated Streamer I have physically had the Grimm vs Antipodes. Grimm is lovely but has limited outputs (AES only) and is at its best upscaling. I don’t know the Canary DAC well. If it is best with a bit perfect signal that is not upscaled, Grimm is a poor choic... | |
| CD players, 5-6K I would check out the Marantz SA-1 which, although a little older, is a killer device. Another option is the CANOR CD 1.10. Very good DAC with a tube output stage and a quality transport | |
| DAC Shootout Starts This Weekend @richh84 I don't have a plan right now to test the Berkeley DACs. I am not a Berkeley dealer and have not had a chance to get one in on trade. I have heard very good things about them but can't say I have ever heard one of their DACs. | |
| DAC Shootout Starts This Weekend @richh84 So...this is tough. My feeling is the Playback MPD 8 with the MPT 8 transport is going to give you the most musical experience. There is something incredibly musical and soulful about the Playback DACs and they are at their very best wi... | |
| Preamp shootout: Linear tube audio, Modwright, etc. Sorry I missed this guys. The stock tubes from AVM are good sounding and extremely quiet but are not great in terms of detail and imaging. Staging is enhanced with good NOS tubes in every direction. I find depth is most enhanced by Mazdas. ... | |
| DAC Shootout Starts This Weekend Here is a new review of the Topping D90LE. I am sure this is going to annoy a segment of the community here and they are not going to want to hear this. I found this demo supremely disappointing because of the hype associated with this product. If... | |
| DAC Shootout Starts This Weekend @metaldetektor Sorry for the delay in responding. It has been a hectic week here. I am using the "Direct Connect" via ethernet from my Antipodes Oladra server. This should be virtually identical to feeding it from an Antipodes K41. I test... | |
| DAC Shootout Starts This Weekend Weiss Helios - I have had this unit in for several weeks and have spent time with it. A few things stand out. The unit is obviously much larger than the 501. It is 2x the price of the 501 so the question is, is it worth that upcharge. Obviousl... | |
| Any one use Grimm MU1 with Aries Cerat Kassandra ? I was going to say the same as @cfa88. Aries Cerat is optimized for USB. Grimm is definitely not my first choice of streamer with it since no USB. The Grimm is at its best when upscaled and needs to be paired with a DAC that is optimized around... | |
| DAC Merry Go 'Round- why I stopped at Weiss I am going to second JPlay. It is solid. Not as stable as Roon on a local server but lightyears better than MConnect. It sounds very good. I have tested it with my Helios which recently arrived and it is not as good as my Oladra but better tha... | |
| DAC Shootout Starts This Weekend Lampizator Amber - I am going to preface this by saying I am testing this unit with stock tubes. I have no interest in rolling and optimizing as I have no plan to keep this unit for myself. Lots of threads in other forums on tube optimization fo... | |
| DAC Shootout Starts This Weekend @mikeg I have never received and Ayon product on trade and I am not an Ayon dealer. If I get one on trade I will write it up. @jimmy2615 my 204 arrived on Saturday and I will be writing up an evaluation of it. You are right that the Helios ... | |
| DAC Shootout Starts This Weekend EMM Labs DA2 V2 - This is the most expensive unit I have tested to date. It is well built and has an awesome remote. This is a big and dynamic sounding unit that has extraordinary detail. It is different than any of the other units I have hea... | |
| DAC Shootout Starts This Weekend @mistercrash I have the Helios here burning in. The first batch recently arrived in North America. I have listened to it initially and it sounds great. Sort of a middle ground between Playback and Aries Cerat. It is dramatically better than the... | |
| DAC Shootout Starts This Weekend @antigrunge2 My experience is that anything that can be done to improve clocking between server & DAC is worth it. I can’t speak about MSB simply because I have never had a unit in to spend lots of time with but dCS definitely and Rockna an... |