Lend me your ears...


I'm hoping to get some buying advice. I live in an area where it isn't possible to audition a variety of products. If you have experience with any of the digital sources I'm considering, your impressions would be most helpful. 

I'm choosing from; Cary DMS 800; Aurender A30; Antipodes K50 with a Benchmark DAC3 HGC; Baetis Reference with the Benchmark DAC. 

Suggestions? Cautionary tales? 

ott

It would be great to see your system / venue. There is a place under your UserID to put it. Really helpful for us to be able to help.

You can see my systems. In mine, my really great analog end sounds the same as my digital end. I am happy with both. I worked on my digital leg… well since the release of the CD.

Lessons: pursue your DAC and streamer the same way you would pursue any other components. Separates, not combined units. In general, the cost of your (carefully chosen) streamer = DAC = preamp = amp = phono stage. All, require top quality, carefully chosen components. I recommend Aurender (or Linn) for streamer… but streamer only. If your budget is $15K then you want to split between the Streamer and DAC. You might get a used high end DAC and a new (best you can afford) Aurender streamer.

Once you have a high end digital system all of those CDs and ripped files become virtually worthless. In my system I cannot tell the difference in sound quality between a CD, ripped CD, and streamed version… but frequently my streaming service (Qobuz… this is the one you want) will have higher resolution versions available and they will sound better (Qobuz has over 1/2 million high resolution albums). So, while I loaded up my ripped CDs… I never use them… why would I? Usually the streamed version sounds better and I am completely lost in new music anyway.

The take away is that, if you do this right your $12.99 / month subscription will give you access to millions of albums and you will no longer have to buy music… so… this gives you reason to take your time and get the best streamer and DAC you can… making stretching worth it as music cost goes down. Sell your CDs while you can. I gave mine away.

unless you like mucking about w the “ IT “ end of things…be certain to get a company with superb support who can remote in to fix issues…. My $1.05

Ghdprentice

I do not have a picture of my listening room because we're just moving in to a condo and the outlets are being wired for 20 amps and the walls are being soundproofed. The room is 18' X 15' and will be fully carpeted. The only furniture will be a three seat recliner, two teak side tables, the equipment, including 2 KEF LS50s, 2 jl audio f113, two amp stands, and rack made with bdr shelves and custom steel tubing, sand filled with braze ons to support center stage footers. There are French doors that will be covered with moire curtains. Triangle Art Reference mono blocks and a Cary SLP 98. I also have a Luxman amp I use with an old Revox reel-to-reel tape machine I used to record radio broadcasts when Leonard Bernstein conducted the NY Phil. 

add more stuff for natural absorb and diffraction…. i setup about 20 excellent rooms a year…. almost all the spare, spartan and over treated ARE… or were… the worst…sounding…

A bunch of 20 A outlets ? getting one of them right is KEY, make sure the analog 20 is a homerun to panel AND on the clean leg

I have no opinion on the HW, as I listen exclusively to analogue.

But I absolutely agree about Flagstad. Flagstad is Flagstad, dominating the field like no other since Caruso. Have you heard Melnas, recorded on BIS?