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Audiophile Changer: Cool or Hopeless Compromise?

Hello again everyone. It is great to be back to this site. Having owned and sold a Levinson 31 (sounded fine but didn't REALLY do it for me) I am finally going back to analogue and perhaps, a SONY SCD-1.

For general every day listening of my 2-300 CDs, however, it would be wonderfully convenient to have them in a changer. Is anyone taking a digital output from one of these things and running it through an external D/A, for example an ARC DAC-1 or DAC2 with decent results? Which changer transport is the best? CD or DVD/multi? And can someone please explain "upsampling"? In my experience, I have never really been transported by anything digital. I am waiting to be converted but in the mean time, would just love to conveniently enjoy a few hundred CDs without getting a migraine or thinking that reading a magazine or watching cable would be more satisfying. Thanks for you ideas and advice. Happy holidays to everyone.
cwlondon

Showing 2 responses by ehider

ehider
286 posts
 
Sugarbrie is dead on with his Awia recomendation. I own one, and it is absolutely world class as long as it is used with a 24 bit dac with the optical connection. Obviously Awia DID NOT design this cheapo changer with the high end in mind, it is just a serious engineering anomoly. I have compared the Awia with quite a few $3k+ transports, and it holds its own with all of them.

The best part about owning the Awia is taking it to high end salons and asking: "Hi, I would like to see if you have a transport that is better than my Awai here". After we do some A/B tests, the sales guy tries to figure out why his transport does not sonically crush the Awia. If they start by choosing a "budget transport" in the $1000 range, the Awia always is the clear choice. I've always left the audio salons with these guys scratching their heads (and me smiling ear to ear).
ehider
286 posts
 
To everyone reading this thread: The Aiwa 5 disc changer that Sugarbrie and I are recommending is sonically equivalent to the Wadia transport, if used with the optical out into a dac with 24 bit sigma delta D/A converters.

This Aiwa "engineering anomaly" is in a COMPLETE DIFFERENT CATEGORY as compared to ANYTHING available by other Japanese manufacturers (remember, the Aiwa sounds as good as the Wadia!). Again, I know that this sounds like an exaggeration, but this is the hard cold truth.
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