Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Nice Marc! Agree with you as it is always about the whole system. We listen to systems....complete systems. 

Yes it's always is about system matching so I can understand part of your thoughts.  I do find it strange as I have heard vinyl and digital on some incredible systems that were put together with system matching as the key ingredient and vinyl has always sounded a bit more relaxed and as detailed for lack of a better word.  Digital certainly does some things much much better and vinyl does things much much better.  

I honestly believe it's all about what you are used to and how you listen. Some folks have grown up on digital and only know that as a format, while many of us cut our teeth on vinyl.  Listen, I LOVE master tape even better than both, but that's not a realistic format for me and my money, lol....

I think that digital is finally catching up to vinyl in it's overall presentation, but it's very expensive for digital to do it still. I can take a 1k TT rig and that includes a MM cartridge and is blows the doors off even the Codex, which IMHO is the best sounding (to my ears as well as many others I speak with) under 3k DAC (it's around 1500 I believe).  

I see the merit in both and have  a lot of money tied up in both, but will only buy some used records and won't spend anymore on my TT rig.  I will however be selling off my OSDE/SE soon as well as my music server that Steven sold to me in order to do some major upgrades in digital.  I'm still not 100% on selling the OSDE as it is still one of the best DACs I've heard under 13k which seems to be the new standard of entry into the top DAC's going.  I"m waiting  for the new Ayre QX-5 as I was told by a couple of folks who have extensive time with it that it's priced to be the killer DAC in the marketplace.  The chips should be in house for real production by the beginning of August I believe.  I also use headphones on weekend mornings and it has a nice amp as well as a streamer so all you need is a NAS or hard drive filled with songs to play.  It also has a Roon endpoint so I guess you can use your iPad and Roon as your app. Learning a ton and this thread is amazing.  Thanks again Matt.  Greatly appreciated.  

Funny things...

Since I finished my listening room, I changed (or upgraded) all my equipments piece by piece. As i said in a previous post my last device to buy is a good DAC. So I started a long process to test different devices. In the same time, I still don't have DAC. So I can not listen my music and it's very frustating because all is ready to run. I talk about that with my friend Chris and he says to me : 'Just buy a small DAC'... after a several stupid arguments about the sound quality of budget's DAC and my audiophile ears, he said : 'Just buy the new Idac2 from Ifi. It's not expensive and it's realy good'. 350 $... why not.

So, I did it. I received the 'Gadget' one week ago and you know what? I'm blown away by the quality of this product. Really. It's so small, tiny, and inexpensive.... Wow. Of course it's not in the same range than a Pavane or an Overdrive, but honestly I can live with it without any problem. And because ifi products are really inexpensive, I will buy the iUSB 3 to test if the USB 3 is better for sound than the USB 2.... In fact, inexpensive products are sometime surprising.

Marc, I totally agree with you. So often people scoff at budget gear, but there's a market for them, because you can hear a nice difference. Honestly, I have an old Krell Stealth Dac that I'm putting into my system tomorrow.  It doesn't have USB, but it had balanced, two coax and a couple or so optical.  I've had it in the system before and it's really nice for an older piece. I'm about to place it up for sale as some folks just love Krell pieces, but I've heard a ton of DAC's from 1500 down that are really nice sounding.  Incremental upgrades are what audio is all about.  Then you have to figure out where you have to jump off the train.  

So a couple of the worst sounding reproductions I’ve heard came from a Mac Mini. Not sure if it was really a Mac issue or coincidental. One was with the Oppo high end headphone DAC/Amp.

The other was the sound of an Ayre QB-9. I love Ayre and the Pono. They sound warm and rich but the one time I heard a QB-9 playing from a Mac it sounded really hard. Another listener who owns a QB-9 said the same thing.

I don’t think it’s worthwhile going crazy making the Mac Mini audiophile grade, but it may be something to watch out for. I don’t know if the issue was ground loops, or what.

In any event, I likd Shiidt, Audio Research and Parasound’s Z DAC a lot, as well as the Ayre DAC’s, of course! :) Actually I got to hear all of those (except the Z DAC) driven off a Mac Mini, and only the Ayre was a real disappointment, it just did not sound as good as I know it could have.  The other three, the Shiidt and AR were my favorites.  I forgot now what kind of hoops they ended up jumping through, USB Isolators, or cables, etc. but in that environment if I had to listen via a Mini, I'd choose the Shiidt or AR.

Money, time and effort no object I'd try to make the Ayre sound good. :)

Best,


Erik