Museatex Bitstream vs Bidat

Ok, I have not heard the IDAT, but I will take your word for it. I already tremendously enjoy my Bidat and Bitstream DACs that were upgraded about a year and a half ago. I will be sending them off back to John for the latest and greatest upgrades in the next week or so. I have been using an older Shunyata Black Mamba cord on the Bidat and I usually just leave it powered on 7x24.

The rest of my two channel system consists of Mcintosh MC-501 amps, Mcintosh MX-119 pre/pro, Vienna Acoustice Mahler, Mcintosh MS750, Ultimate modified Denon 3910 etc.

Mike,

Sweet system! Love the Mac gear. I've got Thiel CS3.7's, Conrad-Johnson Ct5 preamp, Classe Delta 2200 amp and a CEC transport working with the Bidat and Bitstream.

Vhiner,

Yes, those are very rare! Few years ago, I saw one was for sale on ebay, I did not know what the a/d/s idat was, so I emailed John, John told me that was the dac I should get, and send her to him for upgrade. John said that the design of the circuit board is better than better than other models, and can be modified to run on battery. But I did not win the auction, I emailed John, told him that I did not win the auction, John told me that he has one, if I am interested in that, he can sell that to me, I said: Suer. That's how I get mine, and I'm so happy with this baby ever since, and have no desire to buy another newer one to replace her, end of the story. John just told me he can instal a NBC connector on this dac, I will send it in for that update.

D160,

Congrats. Again, please contact me if you ever see one for sale.

Will do, thank you.

Still interested in someone popping the top off of the newer modified Bitstream and sending me a photo. Any takers?

OK I now own both the newer modified Bitstream and older Bitstream with Blackgate caps. I also got the Morey James digital cable to try out. Will keep you posted in the near future.

Happy Listening.

I am eager to read your thoughts on them!

Michael

Ditto. I think the Blackgates are special..but am eager to hear your impressions. The analaog stage of digital is as critical to outcome as the chips used, IMHO.

I know this thread has been quiet for a long time but I wanted to share my experience. I have owned the Bidat approximatley six differnet times. Some were modified and some were stock. They all sounded wonderful and better than most digital being offered, even today. I purchased a Museatex CDD-1 matching transport about a year or so ago to go with my Bidat. The units remote control failed to function correctly and the seller, offered to appease me by giving me a Bitstream. I was ammenable to that offer. I compared the unmodified Bitstream to my unmodified Bidat and found to my surprise that is was outperforming the Bidat. I also found that I was leaving the Bitstream in the rack far more than my former reference AMR DP 777 SE. The Bitstream was fuller sounding, closer to the sound of my turntable. It did not offer the inner clarity and transparency of the AMR by any stretch of the imagination but it did do that ineffiable thing
(very few pieces of gear are capable of) that makes you relax into your chair and just enjoy MUSIC!

I spoke to John Wirght at Museatex who I have known for over 20 years and he agreed that the Bitstream does in fact sound better than the Bidat. He also admitted he basically stopped telling people becasue they would not belive him. I believe him. I sold the Bidat (my 6th :) LOL. I had John modifiy my Bitstream with the latest upgrades and now it does the duty in my second (upstairs system). I also sold the AMR DP 777 SE as the Bitstream is simply more enjoyable. The modified Bitstream wont impart that holographic clarity and lit from within sound that the AMR is capable of doing, but perhaps it is the density of the musical playback the unit is capable of that caused me to settle on the Bitstream as my reference dac.

The second system is composed of a iFi Zen Stream being powered by an iFi Elite Power supply feeding the the Bitstream via an iFi SPDIF iPurifier 2.0 which is powered by an iPower X supply. The output of the Bitstream then goes to my Wyred 4 Sound STP-SE (with Audio Magic Bees Wax fuse) and then output (balanced) to my Graaf Modena (rare edition GM20) OTL. The speakers are Axis Voice Box units.

The Zen is fed via Wifi from my Uptone LPS powered Mac Min located in another room. Roon is the software and Quobuz is the streaming service. I was using Tidal but Quobuz gave Tidal and MQA the smackdown. Everything via Tidal and especially MQA sounds tilted up spectrally (to my ears). It was NOT close at all. Quobuz sounds WAY WAY closer to my CD’s and DSD files.

Can the Bitstream compete with a big Lampizator, on transparency and openess? I doubt it, but in that hard to word area of musical magic that can make the hairs on your arm stand up, probably yes.

I will also add that the Zen Stream system is the closest I have ever been able to get streaming to match CD playback from a good transport. It is so close I can confidently say most would not be able to hear a difference. I can hear it and in the case of the Museatex CDD-1 the streamer has surpassed that transport. The CDD-1 is now in the box stored away for now.

The Bitstream has the overall character of my reference digital playback (belongs to the downstairs ref system) which is an AMR CD 77.1 with a Double Crown TDA1541, Silmic II series caps strategically replacing oscons on the digital engine, 4.7uf Jupiter Copper foil paper in wax output caps bypassed by .01uf Duelend silver foil caps. This player also has an Audio Magic beeswax fuse and Bendix 6900 output tubes. It is simply the finest I have ever heard digital sound regardless of the encoding scheme or sampling frequency. It sounds better than most of my buddies very expensive analog rigs. Not better than my analog LOL which makes use of an AMR PH 77 with Bendix tubes the same fuse, capacitor setup along with the other phono stage a Luxman EQ500 with some special attentiion applied.

The overall sound is VERY similar but the AMR plays larger, more open and simply more real sounding. The Bitstream sounds like an EXTREMELY good musical recreation (better than almost any dac I have experienced including the MSB Diamond Dac) whereas the AMR sounds like Nicole Henry is in front of me performing.

 

 

 

Wow, 11 years between posts!  Is that a record?

 

I have a bidat, which John modified many years ago.  I have always loved that DAC, particularly when coupled with my CEC TL 1.  It presents a lovely, detailed, but un-digital like character.

 

I've recently started streaming and have been thinking of starting a search for a new high res DAC. 

 

But, I have always thought it would be hard to better the bidat for redbook.

Yes, 11 years is a long time. Your system sounds very nice. The Bidat and Bitstream imbue the music with a special presence (nothing to do with the presence region in audio spectrum parlance) that most dacs, regardless of cost seem to completely miss.

The Bitstream is much better than even the Bidat in this area. I’m so over the numbers game when it comes to sampling rate. Roon converts everything to Bitstream compatibility (16/44.1 or 16/48khz) even my DSD files and it sounds amazing.

If you can get your hands on a Bitstream, have John perform his latest mods, you’ll probably sell the Bidat.