dCS vs. Dodson DACs

Hi I've been auditioning the Dodson and Elgar/972 from dCS. They are both excellent, very good resolution with very little if any digital artifacts. I'm not quite through with the audition since i want to give each unit another couple of days to fully warm up and settle in. Overall the dCS gear is the clear winner; simply sounds more like live music and has greater 3-d spatial effects. All whilw still sounding ultra smooth and liquid. The Dodson is definitley no slouch. Very high resolution and transparent sound stage. May have a little more dynamic punch than the dCS but thats probably becuase it needs an active line stage while the dCS runs straight into the amps. Given the price differential the dodson is the winner in terms of value, by a wide margin. But you will ahve to spring for a good line stage so the price difference is not a large as you would intially think. The dCS in unique in its ability to capture the sound as if you were there. It has somewhat better delicacy of detail without sounding HIFI, just natural. The Dodson's detail seems a little more artificial. The 972 (pro version of the Purcell) also can process DSD so if i ever get a transport than can read SACD I will already have the processor. So, again the difference in price is not so great as it first seems but it is still a fairly wide chasm between to the two. Of you have a very high resolution system I would say that you will appreciate the dCS gear more. Otherwise you cannot go seriously wrong with the Dodson. I hope this helps.

Great comments. Thanks very much. I am waiting on a Dodson eval unit and have already tried the Delius (without Purcell), so I'll post my comments when I'm through.

One question for you, 90493. I found the Delius to be a bit on the side of forward-sounding. How would you compare the two brands in this regard? -Dan

HI Dan, nice to make your acquaintance. I must first say that I'm listening to the Elgar with the upsampling. I don't realy know how thta will compare with the Delius w/o upsampling. The Elgar upsampled to 24/192 is actually somewhat layed back compared to the Dodson. The dodson definitely sounds more Hifi which makes for a nice first impression but wears off after a few minutes of listening. Its funny: I saw your post about a week ago right as I began my comparison and thought: Hey theres someone else out there wondering pretty much the same as I. A couple of caveats: The differences may not be as great in different systems. My current system is fairly hi rez (as Albert P would say)I use the Soundlab U-1's and the Wavac HE-833 SET monos, Siversmith cables to and from the amps with Siltech cabling on the front end. I use the Forsell MkII transport. At first the Dodson sounded pretty thin and grainy out of the box. But as it warmed up it developed alot of body and smoothness to the sound. The Elgar always sounded smooth but was a little lifeless at first which went away as it warmed up. The final test came today when the Dodson had been burned in for 6days and the elgar (used) had warmed up for 3 days. The Elgar still won and just to be sure I asked my wife, who generally doesn't like high end audio, to do a blind comparison. She chose the Elgar/972 combo without flinching. Without the upsampling I would imagine I'd prefer the sound of the Dodson over the Elgar/Purcell. With it the dCS wins hands down. Its worth mentioning that the Doson upsamples to 24/192 then oversamples 4x up to 24/768. This ousnds impressive, but what nobody has seemed to point out (and I would like to hear if I'm correct here or not)the Elgar is a 64x oversampling DAC. So if its fed a 24/192 signal from the Purcell/972 and oversamples 64x that puts the frequency up around 5 million based on Dodson's calculations. If so thats more than the SACD format. Sorry for the long winded thread but I find this area of audio fascinating as well as sonically rewarding. As a last thought I will say that neither the Dodson or the dCS gaer have the totally luscious midrang that my former DAC; the Wadia 9 has. Combined with the Wavac's the Wadia 9 produced the most warm, spine tingling midrange I've ever heard. While the Dcs sounds closer to true real life, the Wadia 9 just left you feeling very warm and comfortable. Not as much resolution (but still plenty), just an incredible sense of rich glowing harmonics that made you forget about picking nits and relax. I sort of miss it.

I am currently using a Muse 296 with Audiomeca transport. I am going to check out the Dodson Dac. Has anyone heard both of these dac's. ? What's your impressions?

By the way, I ended up getting the Dodson, but it was a tough call. I think dCS is a terrific company and well worth hitching one's wagon to. The Dodson DAC is wonderful and better priced, but not as future-proof.

Nice to see another forum up and running. My Dodson 'D' shipped today and will be mated to a Sony SCD-1. Just to clarify, the Dodson takes any bitstream and converts it to 24/96, then oversamples by a factor of 8, rendering a 24/768 signal, at least that's what how it's explained in the review found in Ultimate Audio. Chris Garrett, Miami

I am delighted with my SCD-1 running into a Dodson "D". I have no reason to upgrade until DcS comes out with their SACD transport. Even then, the price differential may make it not worth it. David