Mcintosh MDA 1000, world class or ..?

Thank you very much for the responses. I just want to explain my background. I have recently sold my Dcs Elgar/Purcell that I had been using for 7-8 years. At the time I bought them, they were the leader in upsampling technology and I lived happily with them for quite a long time. I need a new dac that improves on my Dcs but without the complication of the Elgar/purcell and all the cables involved(I also used the Apogee Big Ben which necessitate 5 aes-ebu to connect all of them)
Mark, could you give me more details about your a/b comparison test between Mcd 1000 and other dacs. Have you compared with Dcs?

Wow, thank so much for your response. I've been to Hongkong Hifi Show a few years ago and heard the Mc 2kw system which included the Mcd/Mda 1000 and I was very impressed. I just bought a pair of Pipedream 18 and very much need a good source for my system. Other than Mcintosh I am also interested in Esoteric x01 and Meitner Dac6e, I guess I couldn't go wrong with either of these 3 choices?

Hi, Playtheblues, I think you yourself are the one in a very good position to do a comparison test between the Mda1000 vs AA Mk4. That would be very interesting indeed.