DCS Scarlatti

The Elgar plus stack in comparison to the scarlatti is a little more grainy and not quite as natural sounding or resolved. Not by a massive margin as the elgar plus is still very good, but played side by side quite obvious.

Both have very good resolution but somehow the Scarlatti has more warmth and harmonic richness when compared directly to the elgar plus. It also has a shatteringly low noise floor. This is something many may not notice, but due to my high sensitivity speakers, this shows up noise extremely clearly.

I have yet to hear a better digital front end. As for a transport maybe the days of getting 0s and 1s from a spinning cd are over... The upsampler allows you to plug your computer in direct, which then can send DSD direct to the converter.

The Scarlatti right now is the finest digital system there is. Bar none.

DCS are a fabulous little English company. If I needed another digital system I would not know where to look. There is nothing out there that could better this.

Bryan,
the thing with DCS is it is absolute. There is no sugar coating. I think EMM labs has a warmer presentation, and may be more forgiving of the rest of your system. However if you want the finest source I know of no other that comes close. The Scarlatti has a purity and the ability to let you observe any aspect of the recording or performance as opposed to a one trick euphonic pony. It is uncanny what it is capable of.

At this level of gear you will be fine whichever one you go for, but if you just want to listen to music and not get drawn into the ins and outs of each recording, go for the EMM lab or stick some tubes in front of the DCS.