Any better DAC then dCS Scarlatti?

Dear all,

I have the GTE Trinity in my listening room together with the matching amp. Kaiser acoustics has exhibited it at RMAF 2009 in Denver/Co.

I have to say that I prefer the Trinity a huge margin above the DCS. DCS from my point of view is a good device, but can´t compete with Trinity. DCS sound still very edgy and "digital" compared to the Lineatec design of the Trinity.

Best regards

Rainer Weber

Hello,

Kaiser Acoustics is developement partner of GTE Trinity.
So we have all their products in our showroom.

I had several DCS distributors in the showroom and they describes the usual performance margin between the DCS and the other DACs out there. Furthermore they stated that the Trinity is at least the same margin ahead to the DCS.

I have heard DCS at several customers, it is very good but it is not in the level of the Trinity.

Enjoy the possibility to hear it for yourself next week!

By the way: Where are you located? If you like and it is convenient for you, you are also welcome to listen to my setup.

Best regards

Rainer Weber

Hi again,

concerning the Esoteric vs the Trinity:

I have not heard this mono DAC, but for sure their statement concerning the first mono DAC is not true.
Furthermore it seems that it uses just 8 PCM1704 in true paralell configuration (The APL might use 20).
All converters make the same (or nearly the same)at the same time.

But what happens? You reduce noise by the sqr(N).

In contrast the Trinity is total different:
Each single DAC is delayed by one 16th of the sample clock rate. So you have 16 small steps (where the others have just one). This is analog oversampling, a very clever design where Trinity holds the patent worldwide.
An additional benefit is that you avoid the ringing of oversample und filtering in the digital (discrete) domain.

High res files with 176,4 or 192 kHz can be played without any digital filtering at all. Trust me this makes a stunning difference.

I ahve to admit that the Trinity DAC contributes a lot to our best sound of the show at RMAF 2009 (see stereotimes for example)

Best regards

Rainer Weber

Dear all,

I think a shootout would be possible.
I would like to invite you in my showroom (see www.kaiser-acoustics.com) for this event.
I can help with the Trinity DAC, so we need some audiophiles who aree willing to bring their DCS or APL players with them.

Wine and food is on me!

Best regards

Rainer Weber

Dear all,

yes this sounds great! Lets proceed and make this comparison.

There were some questions regarding the system.

Lets start with the room. It is 5,12 m width, 6,98 m long and 2,8 m height. This gives a fairly good distribution of room modes. The entire room was build from scratch just to serve as listening room.
Room acoustic (RT 60) is really flat at 0,38 s (not overdamped) in all third octave bands. Only below 50 Hz the reverberation time increases to 0.8 s.
There is a lot of diffusors included. Some are QRD types (based on the prime number 7). A very special plain 2D diffusor is located behing the speaker.

Powerline: Oyaide Distribution block, Vertex AQ coming soon
Powercables, IC, Speakercables: Echole Obsession and Vertex AQ soon
Rack: Special rack made from tankwood (similar to our speaker cabinet)

Tube Amps: Absolare Pure Preamp and Mastersound 845 Monoblock Signature Edition (highly tweaked)

Solid State Amp: GTE Trinity AMP
This amp outperforms the Mastersound easily. It has balanced inputs. So I would prefer to use this amp directly without any preamp.

Harmonix, Vertex AQ and Steinmusic Tuning Feets
7 Lessloss Blackbodies
2 Steinmusic H2a and 2 Steinmusic H2b (see stereotimes for review)
Steinmusic E-Pads and Magic Stones.

Kaiser Kawero Speaker (with some new additional features we are just testing)

PC Frontend with xxhighend memory software player (www.xxhighend.nl)
Weiss Vesta Firewire to SP/DIF converter
M2Tech Hiface USB to SP/DIF converter

and a good turntable (Kuzma Stabi XL4 with 4 point arm)

I will check my schedule and appointments but I think we are not able to perform this before High end show in Munich.

A good friend is willing to send a burned in DCS Scarlatti for that event.

Best regards

Rainer Weber

Dear all,

sorry for the delay for answering.

I use the GTE with the special balanced output and an Echole Obsession interconnect. The other output (unbalanced) is a transformer output, it is also very good.

In my system the GTE outperforms the Kuzma by a huge margin.

I will coordinate the DAC shootout this summer, I would prefer some time slot in August.

Best regards

Rainer