Esoteric DV-50 vs. Accuphase DP-75V

Agree with Reb1208.

I brought a DV-50 with the intention that it will be only used for SACD, DVD-A and DVD-V. For the red book CD, I had a Wadia 270 + 27ix system.

In the first week of usage, the DV-50 is just so so. However, after a week of intense running-in, the sound improved tremendously. Then I started to take the DV-50 serious.

I enabled the CD-direction option, turned off the video circuit and display, added a grounding wire to the pre-amp, put the DV-50 on a proper auido platform. Then the sound improved to another level.

SCAD play back from the DV-50 was already better than the Wadia playing the CD layer. The CD play back of DV-50 was still behind that of the Wadia. Basically, the DV-50 CD play back is too bright and the low frequency lack enough control and was misty. At that point, I also noticed that I have to use a rather low volume setting in my pre-amp for the DV-50. It seemed to suggested that the voltage of the output of DV-50 is too high.

I immediately changed to use the RCA instead of the XLR output of my DV-50. Bingo! It solved most of the problems. After a few more days of running in, the CD play back from DV-50 is still behind that of the Wadia, but by not much.

I was surprised, excited and considered that it might not be worthwire for keeping the wadia combo. So I sold the Wadia combo together with my ML 380S pre-amp and brought a ML 32 pre-amp. I can tell u that the preformance of DV-50 + ML32 is way better than that of 270+27ix+380s.

I forgot to mention that I acheived the best result by using the XLR out of the DV-50 and setting the ML 32 to have a zero grain for that XLR input.

Hi Reb1208,

I remeber that sometime ago I did read a post on similar topic in AA mentioning the weakness of DV-50 and how it can be handled. When I faced the same problems myself later on, that post in AA (most likely yours, but i am not 100% sure) definitely arose in my mind and help a lot. Your contribution is well appreciated :)

Thank also for sharing the speaker cable trick with us. Unfortunatedly, I cannot be benefited from it as my amp (ML432) does not have biwiring binding post.