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Big problem / bottleneck in my chain

Hello everyone,
I don’t know exactly where to post

Seems I have a big problem in my chain, but please let me first list my gears :

CD  player Moon 260d used as a transport (but equipped with the Dac) => s/pdif Shunyata Alpha bnc => DAC Chord Hugo TT2 + mscaler => Cardas Golden ref. xlr => Mcintosh c2700 => cardas parsec xlr => Coda 16.0 => Cardas Golden ref. => Magnepan 20.7

 

 

While I realized I was not experiencing a difference between mscaler in or out the chain (yes I know some may argue mscaler is bs) , I was not either perceiving a tangible difference between the moon 260d used as a transport or the streamer Aurender N150 (on the same songs indeed).
 

So I started to suspect a bottleneck in the chain somewhere… as I expected the cd transport with a physical media to perform better than a streamer.

This afternoon, I did some experiments:

  • plug the 260d as a cd player straight to the preamp using its internal dac
  • plug the 260d as a transport to the TT2 (not using the mscaler) using the shunyata alpha bnc spdif
  • plug the 260d as a transport to the internal dac of the mcintosh c2700 using a cheap spdif cable (internal dac is a da2)

i couldn’t hear any difference or nuances between the 3. If there was then I could hardly perceive maybe a little subtile more air using the TT2…but not that obvious.

 

I have always heard any difference in the past on any of my components (even on cables….) but here I don’t understand what is happening.

could it be the transport is the bottleneck and as such any dac will not make any difference ?

could it be that I should unplug the internal dac inside the 260d as it is influencing the sound as a transport only in some ways ?

 

I am really disappointed and lost. Should I sell my TT2 , mscaler and plug everything in the da2 of the preamp c2700.

or is it the transport being the weak link and finally whatever dac I am using (200 or 5000$), there is no difference

that really doesn’t make sense.

Any advice / feedback from real experienced, senior specialists ?

antmou

Showing 1 response by ghdprentice

ghdprentice
7,694 posts
 

Well. The Aurender is probably as good a source or better than the Moon. I would expect it to perform at least as good as the CD transport... possibly better. I own a Aurrender N150 for my headphone system.  

In my main system, I cannot tell the difference between a CD, Stored files, and steaming of exactly the same mastering. That is a good thing, and was the goal. My systems are shown under my ID.. but an Aurender W20SE, and all Audio Research Reference components. There is definitely no good reason the transport should sound better. A transport is a mechanical transport and a streamer combined as you are using it). But it is a little surprising (maybe good) that it doesn’t sound slightly different. Moon (I’ve owned some high tier CD/DAC) is pretty dry and detailed. I would expect the Aurender to be very slightly warmer and more natural.

This does not answer all your questions, however. It is strange that you are not hearing differences between DACs as you switch things around. DACs tend to sound different. Your speakers and amp are pretty sensitive... hmmm.

 

 

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