Higher End DACs

Just recently I wanted to upgrade from my very nice sounding (for the price) Naim Nova to something better, i had a home demo of the DCS Bartok, whilst a decent improvement over the Nova and I was slightly tempted, however it was in my view not worth the two and a half times price difference over the Nova, couple of weeks later on a chance visit to my local dealer i saw the T+A SDV 3100 HV reference streamer dac and pre amp on display and it was also on sale ex demo at a fantastic price point, promptly took it home for a listen, straight away I knew I had something special, absolutely trounced the Bartok, but then it's twice the price new, very happy I made that trip to my local dealer that day.
Hope you find what you are looking for.

rgmd11.. in what manner did you compare the Bartok to the T&A? For instance did you use a good preamp with the Bartok? Just curious

4425
I connected directly to my ATC speakers (active) which are extremely revealing and the SDV 3100 HV just sounded so much more nuanced and natural and very very musical than the Bartok which was somewhat digital in comparison, don’t get me wrong the Bartok is a fine piece of kit, I had the Naim Nova before and the Bartok was clearly better than the Nova......

ufguy73

1. - the other concern is no MQA.  I recognize why...and I recognize that MQA is not the end-all-be-all, at least right now...however, it does strike me as a consideration that one of the differentiators of the T+A is it being 'future proofed' (as much as anything in the this world can be) - and yet it does not cover one of the growing formats that several other manufacturers are going through various updates in order to support.
   

I e-mailed T+A this week about MQA and this was their reply:

"thank you for your feedback! I'm pleased that you are very satisfied with your SDV3100HV!

There are plans to support the audio format MQA in the long term. But if or when we will be able to realize an update for SDV3100HV, I cannot answer you.

I wish you much joy with your SDV3100HV!

All the best!


T+A elektroakustik GmbH & Co. KG
Bernd Mölling
Planckstr. 9-11
DE 32052 Herford"


So hopefully this will be soon coming, personally I find MQA on certain material through Tidal has a good incremental addition in SQ....

Regards
RGMD11

I will add that over the past 3 or 4 years I had various setups including Lumin, Aurender, Hegel H360, Gryphon Diablo and a Accuphase E-470, Naim Nova, all with DAC’s and whilst very good to extremely good, the T+A just totally walks all over them for every Audiophile platitude you may care to think of, it is just everything that I have been striving for......at long last I am extremely happy....

E-mail from T+A last week:

thank you for your feedback! I'm pleased that you are very satisfied with your SDV3100HV!

There are plans to support the audio format MQA in the long term. But if or when we will be able to realize an update for SDV3100HV, I cannot answer you.

I wish you much joy with your SDV3100HV!

All the best!


T+A elektroakustik GmbH & Co. KG
Bernd Mölling
Planckstr. 9-11
DE 32052 Herford