2. digital
  3. 1398132150

Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Hi All.

Putting together a reference level system.
My Source is predominantly standard 16/44 played from a MacMini using iTunes and Amarra. Some of my music is purchased from iTunes and the rest is ripped from standard CD's.
For my tastes in music, my high def catalogues are still limited; so Redbook 16/44 will be my primary source for quite some time.

I'm not spending DCS or MSB money. But $15-20k retail is not out of the question.

Upsampling vs non-upsampling?
USB input vs SPDIF?

All opinions welcome.

And I know I need to hear them, but getting these ultra $$$ DAC's into your house for an audition ain't easy.

Looking for musical, emotional, engaging, accurate , with great dimension. Not looking for analytical and sterile.
mattnshilp

Showing 3 responses by rbstehno

rbstehno
1,540 posts
 
How would the PS Audio Directstream Jr compare to these dacs that have been stated In this thread?
rbstehno
1,540 posts
 
How about the latest directstream with the bridge II installed. Sounds very good to me compared to a lot of dacs listed here. Using the bridge, it uses  I2S internally. Finally I'm able to get rid of USB which I used for many years either going from the computer music server into a dac or from my Auralic Aries (which sounded fantastic, better than some of the others listed in this thread). Get a Gb network setup with a good quality cat 5/6 cable going in the bridge II and forget about servers in your audio room and ditch USB
rbstehno
1,540 posts
 
You couldn’t get any worse source music than iTunes. Plus you are limited by using a Mac mini with amarra. Plus having a Mac in an audio room is the worse. I had this setup a few years ago and replaced it with an Auralic Aries and SQ was much better. Even with the Aries I used a AQ Diamond USB cable to an external dac. USB sucks!
I sold that setup and went with the PS Audio directstream with the bridge 2 and SQ is fantastic.
i moved the Mac mini into the basement with 24TB of raid disk using OS X server for all my music and communicated to the DS using 1G Ethernet 
More to discover