Any better DAC then dCS Scarlatti?

Crna, what do you mean everyone?

Murataltuev, I actually think it was the Scarlatti. I havent heard the old model in a long time but I think I thought the old model more "musical".

Murataltuev,
its always hard to say if one brand is better than another brand since everyone look for different things when they evaulate sound reproduction. However I will say that the APL NWO-4.0-SE player/dac was reviewed very favorably in the latest Norwegian Fidelity magazine and found to be "better" than most of the big names that come to mind.
If you are looking for state of the art source I think you should investigate it further.

Bflowers, before I bought the APL I audiotioned several players and dac combos, among them were the Big Weiss stack(Jason/Medea), the big MBL(1621/1611), the small Boulder 1012, separates the Boulder 1021, the Emm CDSA, the Arc CD7.
Weiss - detailed with good bass
MBL - big and bold
Boulder - balanced but a little to dry

Later I heard the big DCS, which I find to harsh/edged

The APL excels in live like dynamics and drive it has physical presence and liquidity. All this is of course IMHO.

I did hear the Scarlatti and prefer the APL by wide margin.

Murataltuev,

I posted the link to the Scarlatti system I heard previously. With Focal speakers and ASR. Ive heard the Focals on several occasions all the models, I attach a link where you can see some of thesystems Ive heard including some of the sources mentioned. Since Ive heard all the Focals and the ASR on several occasions I think I have a pretty good grasp of their "sound" and can dissect the Scarlatti sound pretty well. So I second Puremusics finds, the NWO-3.0-SE was better than all the other sources Ive heard and the NWO-4.0-SE is significantly better.
As for cheap price tag Im not sure what youre referring to but if you mean the APL has a lower price than the DCS stack and therefore should not be better. I would take into account what the DCS costs factory direct, I figure a lot less then what the dealers charge. Anyway the thing with the APL is that people that havent heard it cant imagine how good it will sound and I havent seen any APL NWO-4.0-SE owners looking for another DAC like some other owners of the so called top dacs do. The only ones that dont seem to like it are the ones that havent heard it. Many owners of the NWO dont post and read this site and own or has owned pretty much all of the mentioned machines and thinks one of them is far superior. Im really looking forward to Puremusics review!

Wflm,

IT IS RETAIL READY!

For the 4.0-SE they went through 18 versions of the software before they were totally happy. It is debugged, robust and serviceable.
I owned the 3.0-SE before and had no problems with it and now have the 4.0-SE and never had any problem with it.

Wflm, sorry should have added the APL comes with 3 year warranty no matter what the problem is.

Murataltuev,

the Focal have sort of unnatural sound from glass foam cone and the ASR is sort of transitorized grainy in some sense, so that might result in some of the findings but it is/was still not so imminent with the other sources I heard together with the same speakers.
About audition in your country you would have to ask APL.

Murataltuev, you should really try to hear it, I dont think you will be dissapointed:-)

The APL NWO-4.0-SE doesnt use any low pass filters and is phase-linear in the audio range, it uses the second generation 32 bit AKM devices and has 20 differential DACs per channel.
From what I can see the GTE uses OpAmps, and the NWO has a Differential tube stage.
But technical talk is worth so much, maybe a shootout can be arranged instead?

So when are you trying the best one ?:-)