Difference between Burmester 979 and MBL 1521A


In the market for a new transport upgrade from the CEC TL1X. Heard the Burmester 979 in my system and loved it. Less colored than the CEC while retaining the emotion and soul of the music. Also better at the frequency extremes. This is the best that I've heard in my system. Only heard the MBL at the shows and liked what I heard. Has anybody heard them side by side. I wonder if the Burmester belt drive mechanism has the edge in musicality.
128x128himiguel

Showing 1 response by jackaroe

Osgorth,(and others)
Based on your comments on MBL gear I would like to get some feedback from you. As any of us audiophiles have experienced at some point, the equipment can pull headgames on us and I'm a bit confused/frustrated right now.
In short- I dismantled and sold off my old system a couple of years ago consisting of 111e's, 9007's as mono's, 1621a/1611e(after I dumped a 5011/1531 combo which I was unimpressed with) and a 6010d tied together with Tara The Ones and a Wireworld dig. cable. This system was set up in a 18x14 room against the long wall. This setup was just amazing, really exceptional, close to the best I've ever heard at any cost- and I've owned/heard alot of high end gear.
I recently decided to jump back in as there has been a glut of MBL stuff on the used market.
I set up my room with a pair of 101e's, a 9008a in stereo mode(I still have the other one but wanted to see how it would push the 101e's), a 6010d and a 1521a/1511f combo using the same cables.
I can't get this rig to come close to what I had and despite a more powerful amp and a speaker upgrade, I'm thinking the differential is the 15xx vs. the 16xx. Just can't find that "Ahhh" to get the resolution or spacial perfection I had before. I am clearly missing the nitty gritty fine detail. I've been playing with placement and corrected a phase problem which have helped, but I'm still getting a somewhat compressed sound compared to the previous setup and seem to be thinking it's the 1521a/1511f which was my original beef with the 5011/1531 combo. I found the 6010d to be a huge, quantum leap over the 5011 last time so I didn't even go there this time around but was told that the 15xx separates would offer a significant improvement over the 1531 player, and the "f" dac board should have been an upshot over the previous generation "e" dac. I find it hard to believe that a larger chassis could offer such a dramatic difference and was told that the transport mechanism is the same in the 1521a/1621a but after closer review of the spec's I don't think they are the same. The 1611a claims to have a "Pro Spec" transport that the 1521a doesn't have.
Any thoughts or comments?

Thanx,
Jackaroe