Exemplar Audio DVD5910

You hate writing a comment like this?

I think this is great that you posted your opinion. It helps people in their research and prevents some from making a mistake.

There seems to be almost like a cult for some modders(not poking at exemplar directly, there are others). People have their amps, preamps or digital sources modded and the only opinions I see posted are positive ones. And yet you see bunch of modded equipment for sale.

I had a cd player modded. I had an amplifier modded.
Neither of these pieces synergized with the rest of my system as well as they did in their stock form.
I had to sell and took a pretty good bath $ wise.
I've done my research before I sent off the pieces for mods, but all I could find is how great this stuff is.

Thank you, Ken, for posting your honest opinion.

To be perfectly honest I was very disappointed in the performance of the 5910 and I sold it off after a year. It was "smooth" sounding but I found it to be lacking in dynamics and it had an obvious mid-bass deficiency. I heard from the gentleman I sold it too and his comments were very similar to mine. I still have John's Denon 2900 and I actually think it sounds much better. I replaced the 5910 by going back to a separate transport/DAC arrangement - both from Accustic Arts (Drive 1 Mk. 1/DAC 1 Mk. 4). The musical reproduction is on a completely different level from what I was experiencing. It still leaves me shaking my head in wonder - it is without question the best digital front end I've ever heard. I hate writing a comment like this because I think the world of John Tucker but you did ask me directly - the 5910 was a real non-starter for me. Perhaps after his success with the 2900 modification my expectations were too high.

Ken Golden

do you have any comments on the performace of your 5910 Exemplar???