Question for Cary 306SACD owners

In his Positive Feedback review, Dave Clark recommends the 512 setting. In my own experience, this setting sounds good on virtually all redbook discs. In truth, however, I have switched back in forth endlessly between all of the settings and I am yet to hear more than very subtle changes in performance.

Read the Positive Feedback review and then play with the settings. You can make the changes "on the fly" with the Cary remote control. Perhaps your ears are more refined than my own and you may just hear something significant. If you do, please report back!

The Positive Feedback review also addresses the break-in period and states that 500 - 600 hours of play seems to be appropriate. (WOW!)

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue23/cary_306.htm

As to "break in" in my own system, I have had my 306 SACD for about 4 months and I am surprised almost every day because the unit just seems to get better and better. I would guess that I must have somewhere between 4 and 5 hundred hours on the player. It does get better, the more you play it. This player is phenomenal!

I've owned, and listened to, a bunch of very fine CD & SACD players. the Cary definitely holds its own against any of the competition. I actually sold the highly touted Ayre C5Xe player and kept the Cary because I felt that ultimately, the Cary sounded more "real" in my system.

I think that the areas where the Cary 306 SACD really shines are imaging, soundstaging, dynamics, bass performance, and an uncanny ability to project the sound of voices and instruments with lifelike realism, suspended in space against totally black background.

SACD and Redbook performance is superb with the Cary 306 SACD.

Enjoy!

I agree with everything Jprice has said. I usually go back and forth between 512 and 768, but mostly listen at 768. I believe the "D" value is for the digital outputs. I might look for another digital source in the future, but nothing comes to mind that is vastly better than the 306 at this point. I considered the Ayre C5XE but settled on the Cary. I listened to the Esoteric X-01 in my system and preferred the Cary.

The build quality on the 306 is truly impressive as well.

If you have HDCD encoded discs be sure to set the A on 44.1 so that the HDCD decoder is engaged. The display will show "HDCD" for those discs.

Other than that, I leave it set at 192KHz.

hi guys
my 306sacd has about 400 hrs. on it.as Jprice states i hardly notice any change while changing the upsampling rates.i am curious if 306sacd owners are hearing big changes or not
thanks
al

I bought my 306 used and it had ~300 hours on it when I got it. I really didn't hear much in the way of break-in when I put it into my system (about 9 months ago). It continues to sound great on RBCD/HDCD and SACD.

As to the filters, I almost always listem without upsampling. In that mode the signal goes through the PM200 HDCD filter which is a high quality filter. RBCD sounds really fine in that mode. I've experimented with various amount of upsampling but I don't find any of them sounding better than the 44.1 setting. Strangely, when I use 192 the sound is louder by about 1 or 2 dB. At first it seemed to sound better but I have chalked that up to it being slightly louder. Anyone else experience this?

I agree with Jprice. I find it very difficult to hear any difference between the settings. I did a double blind test with my girlfriend switching between 44.1 and 768 and I really could not tell. My hearing must be pretty bad :(