New Cary DMS 700

That’s ridiculous. I’m sorry and I’m a long term Cary amp and preamp owner too. Uh, $7995 retail ??? for a network-streamer-DAC with R2R. People are using iPads, pads, laptops, not a puny display on front of a unit smaller than a mobile phone. A great example of how out of touch things can get when market moves right past ya.

Bummer. This is exactly why so many people are going in different directions outside of the USA now for streamers and DACs. Schiit made in California or Border Patrol in Maryland both have the right USA approach - quality, fair price, value, competitive sounding, selling products without having to discount. They get it, keeping it in the USA too! Survival of the fittest will prove true in this new digital era of audio. Valid competition is forcing prices down, fast. Voting for those who adapt fast, survive, and thrive. 

A $315 Allo.com Digi One Signature Rasberry Pi streamer (euro made with india R&D) with optional power supplies paired with a variety of good $1k to 1.5k R2R Ladder DACs at less than 1/3 the total price, with equal or better result. Hopefully others in the USA (like Schiit has) figure it out sooner than later.  Value gets the $ from the majority mainstream audio consumer any more.  

Street price will be under 6k and Cary will sell a ton of them. Much better sounding than the Aurender A10 and the Lumin T2.  Plus more features 
I don’t think the Rasperry Pi crowd is their target audience. It’s guys like me that want a one box solution. I have been thru the seperate streamer/ Dac/ uSB/ Regen/seperate power supplies/ system. The Cary is a great looking unit that sounds great and removes clutter.  

I have placed a pre-order for the DMS 700 and currently have a Lumin T2.  While generally happy with the Lumin, it does venture to the bright side as a kind of side effect of the clarity and detail.  Could be chasing my tail here, but I have owned Cary products in the past and have always been a fan since my original SLI 80 days--so I have reason to pursue the comparison and the 30 day trial allows me to do just that.  If I can squeeze between what I like about the detail of the T2 and what I'm hearing about the Cary is less of an edge, less brittleness, then I'll keep the piece.  I'll be running it with an Audio Research GS 150 amp and Reference 6 preamp into the new Wilson Sabrina X speakers.  The comments about the marketing were; however, disconcerting and won't help if in fact details have been misrepresented about the uniqueness of the R2R & tandem approach.  But I'll reserve judgement and let the results dictate my decision.

I really liked the Lumin T2 but would have to start over with Speakers and cabling to make it sound good long term in my system. The DMS 600 has a much fuller sound but lacks a tinge of the detail of the Lumin   The new 700 hopefully has the best of both. Please post thoughts after a week of warm up. The 600 sounded good right out of the box. 

When used as a Dac it will do DSD over its digital inputs 


AES/EBU, Coaxial, Toslink operating at Sample Frequency (Fs) from 44.1 kHz to 384 kHz, 16 bit to 24 bit, DSD64, DSD128