Worlds best DAC

Hi,
I was wondering if you had a chance while at CES to hear the CH Precision digital front end. I had the pleasure to hear this digital front end in my system at the beginning of December for a weekend. Like you, I have a good digital front end that I am happy with and I have listened to many other great digital front ends either in my room or in other systems that I a familiar with. In addition, I have a friend who has built a non oversampling dac with a tube output stage using the TDA 1541 dac chip (limited to redbook only). I would agree with you that my friends dac might have been the most natural sounding of them all until I heard the CH Precision. This is by far the best digital that I have ever heard. It is a 2 box design - with a CD/SACD transport and DAC which can also be used as a preamp. the dac has has all of the standard digital inputs as well as asychronous USB, and an ethernet card to be released in February (which they were showing at CES) to allow direct attachment to a network attached storage device. With its full solution you can play CD and SACD using its transport and also redbook and hi-rez digital files from either a computer or a NAS. I didn't get a chance to hear the Ypsilon dac so I don't know how they would compare (and that is difficult to do at CES anyways) but I think the CH Precision gear is certainly worth looking into.

Arnie

It was in the Musical Artisans room with Magico Q3 speakers and they were using Luxman mono block amps (not sure of the model) with all Argento Flow Master Reference cabling. They are working on an amplifier and that was in the room on static display.

It is definitely a contender as some of the best digital playback around (easily the best that I have ever heard). Its hard to know the exact price as the C1 dac/preamp has multiple options that you can choose - for example the async USB board is an option, as is the Ethernet board. I spoke to the founder of the company, Florian Cossey, while I was there and they are also working on an analog input board that he felt would be available sometime around June of this year. I think the base price of the C1 dac/preamp is in the $30K range. When I listened to it in my room, it sounded best when the C1 unit was used as both a Dac and preamp (it has both RCA and XLR analog outputs). It is also built like a tank - the C1 unit itself weighed around 70 pounds.

Arnie

Hi Lloyd,

I would say this about the CH Precision. I have had the opportunity to listen to it - meaning both the D1 CD/SACD transport and the C1 DAC/Preamp in my system (this was back at the end of November 2011). If you have a digital only system such that you could use the C1 DAC not only as a DAC but also utilizing the preamp section, then it is amazing sounding digital. At the time it was the best that I had heard (which includes the Esoteric P03/D03/G0s combo that I owned at the time, the EMM XDS1, and the full DCS Scarlatti stack.) However, if you have an analog front end and therefore would want to continue to use whatever preamp you are using and would only use the C1 DAC as a DAC feeding your preamp, then while still very good digital, the CH Precision combo will drop back much closer to the other units above based on what I heard - perhaps still a little better in some ways, but its magic is clearly when used without an additional preamp in the chain. Also, the build quality is superb - better even than the Esoteric.

I know that CH Precision was working on an analog input board for the C1. I don't know if it is available yet, but the downside to me was that they were planning to take the signal from the analog input and then convert it to 24/192 digital and process it as a digital signal which is not something that I wanted to do with my analog front end.

Let me know if you have other questions. Thanks
Arnie

Hi Lloyd,

You're welcome.

I have not heard the Zanden so I cannot comment on it. You can check my system page and see that I ended up going with a digital front end from MSB. I use it through my preamp as well. I was looking for a digital front end that would allow me the flexibility to play redbook CD, SACD as well as Hi-rez PCM (where those were truly hi-rez and not already on SACD). The MSB solution on my system page allows me to do all of this. It also sounds amazingly good. I would say that it definitely betters the CH Precision when both go through my preamp and would give the CH Precision a run for its money when the CH is used direct to my amps. It is a far richer and more natural sounding digital solution than the other digital front ends that I have listened to with amazing resolution, the lowest noise floor of the ones that I have heard and an ease and liquidity about it that is just great to hear.