Supermod for Meitner Bidat

Owned it, and it is a very well kept secret amongst the reviewers as one of the best DACS on the planet. The SuperMod definately makes it worth while. I replaced it about 2 years ago with the Sony SCD-1. Now, if you can handle this I will tell you what will blow them both away. The ART DIO. You may have heard people saying things like it is good for the money...etc. It is incredable. The best from ANY medium I have ever heard including LP's. I sold my SCD-1 and now only listen to redbook. I know of a guy who heard the unit and sold his $20K Linn Sondek replacing it with the DIO. There is a mod that can be done for $100.00 to replace the stock 1/4" phono plugs with Cardas RCA connectors that once again increase its sound superiority (hard as it is to believe) by a huge margin. There are a group of us in NY and Chicago who all use the unit... In all about 3 SuperBidats,DCS Elgar/Purcell combo/Linn Sondek/Legend Audio Dac/Audio Logic/Dodson...etc have been sold and replaced by the DIO. In fact if you remember, about a month ago 3 SuperBidats showed up on this site nearly simultaneously, these guys are all using the DIO. No magazine is ever going to review it and tell you it will whip the snot out of a Levinson or DCS piece, it's just not good business since for them to be "THAT" truthful. Goto www.artproaudio.com. I have owned Tube Research Labs AMPS/PRE(currenlty I own Nestorovic NA1 amps)/Legacy Whispers with 2 LF Extreme Sub woofers...etc. I say this to let you know I have been exposed to some of the best gear in the world and the DIO is the finest sounding unit I have ever heard, period. Ok, I have waxed on poetic...sorry.

Mike M
PS>It also wiped the floor with the Accuphase DP100/101 $28K combo. I listened to them side by side (on 2 seperate occassions) extensively on a system composed of: Nelson Pass X1000 monos, Legacy Whispers, 2 Legacy LfExtreme subs, Accuphase DP100/DP101, Accuphase DC330 and all Siltech Gen4 cabling (PS>The Siltech cabling was the generation just before the latest gen5 so I am assuming it was gen4).

I would second Mike's recommendation of the DI/O. I have owned some high end DACs including the highly-regarded EVS Millennium DAC 1B and now use the ART DI/O. It fits well in my setup (Merlin VSM-M, Transcendent Sound OTL, Jeff Rowland Coherence preamp) even though it does not cost an arm and a leg (supposedly can be bought for $125 on the Net (www.fullcompass.com).
Do a search on DIO on Audio Asylum and you will see countless posts on it.

I wish I could be so enthusiastic about the Art DI/O....but I didn't have that kind of experience. I succumbed to the hype and bought one. I replaced the weird jacks with RCAs, and then used very good interconnects. I then compared it to my Audiomeca Enkianthus. Good for the money (cheap!), but the Enkianthus smoked it. The DI/O sounds good until things get a little busy. Suddenly all of your images are homogenized with little or no separation. My system is very similar to Vtvu's, except that I use an RDP-1 digital DAC to provide volume and a Joule Electra OTL with the Merlin Millenium speakers. From my experience with cheap digital, melding images together is exactly what it does. My CEC TL51 and Musical Fidelity X-Ray did much better than the DI/O did hooked up to a mega-buck transport with megabuck digital cables. I then used the DI/O to build a small system for my ex-wife, and that's where it remains. I wish good digital could be that inexpensive.
I also had a Meitner Super Bidat about 4 DACs ago. It was great in it's day, but there are much better DACs out there now. I compared it to the 24/96 Electrocompaniet EMC-1, and sold it. The new DACs have so much more information with the upsampling process. It's just no contest.

I repeat, finest sound I have ever heard. I don't know what jacks you used or how you went about it, but I do know it is sensitive to the RCA's selected and the how they are installed. Either way, (TgRaffair) I suggest you try it. I have found it to be better than all the mega-dollar dacs I have heard (including SACD), and I can afford what I want. Paul Stubblebine having having mastered numerous platinum, gold and Grammy® Award-winning albums in the last 25 years got rid of about 16 very expensive dacs, Pacific Microsonics ($23K) and others too numerous to mention and replaced them with 16 DIO's. I found out about his use of the DIO's long after I had discovered it.

Mike

Glreno: I don't owe DIO but I had extensive experience with equipment where power supply is cheap junk to be plugged into wall. When music became more complex, exactly as you describe, power supply always failed. I firmly believe, this is what you have. If I would own DIO, the first thing I would build (or ask someone, say Stan Warren from Supermod to build it for me) dedicated power supply with IEC so I could use good power cord as well.

Already done for you... Go to Radio Shack and order the 9VAC 3400ma powersupply for $30.00. It makes a huge difference.

Mike