Wadia 581SE, DCS Puccini or something else???

It was easy to compare Wadia and dCS in Munich Show 08 on April. Most liked dCS.

Regarding remote controls, it's not the case to be beautiful but to work.

I owned the two box emm labs transport and dac and it is marvelous. Why buy the one box system when you can get the two box system used for the price of the inferior one box system used.

Or you can save even more money and get great analog sounding cd player from the reference marantz cd player (available used on audiogon for 4k-5k). Because of budget issues, I purchased the dartzeel preamp and acquired the marantz sa7s1 reference cd player. The addition of the dartzeel preamp to mate with my dartzeel amplifier even when connected to a much less expensive cd player easily outclassed the emm labs preamp/dac and separate transport paired up with my dartzeel amp. The marantz transport is quieter than the emmlabs transport and has a nicer remote too. If I could have kept the emm labs, I might have since it is might be a little more revealing than the marantz but its damn close.

Radioheadokplayer,
How would you compare the bottom end slam of the Marantz to the
EMM? Some people seem to feel the SA7s1 is lacking in that area.

I would agree that for cds the marantz does not have the same bottom end slam as the emm labs. But it seems more refined and smooth. I would say the emm lab is more analytical but still not harsh but not warm either (neutral). the marantz is the most analog and least digital sounding cd player that I have ever heard (a tad warm but in a wonderfully natural way). On sacd, I think the marantz is as good as the emm labs even in the area of bass.

Combined with my dartzeel preamp and amplifier, I would be more concerned about bass slamm if not for the fact that my speaker has a powered woofer so I still get quite a lot of bass just less than with the emm labs preamp/dac with transport combo. Neither the dartzeel nor the the marantz is the last word in bass. However, the bass sounds very accurate, not flabby, and quite fast (just not super deep and tight). I don't think anyone system has no tradeoffs but the tradeoff is rather slight. I have only listened to about 50 cds on the marantz so far with the dartzeel preamp and prefer the new combination on the overwhelming marjority of cds. Only a few cds sound equally good to the old system and only two so far sound better on the old system. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to listen to the dartzeel preamp and amp with the emm labs so am not sure how much is attributable to the new dartzeel preamp versus the marantz. But bear in mind the marantz reference cd player costs $4500 used ballpark and the emm labs se edition costs over $10,000 used. The non-se version is not nearly as good. I have not heard the one box system but hear great things although the emm lab dealer concedes that it is not as good as the two box. Even stil, the one box is used approximately $6500 so the marantz is a real good deal.

I have puccini and asked directly to DCS about plastic remote control. They said soon they will upgrade it to much better looking a hefty (brushed alum.)one. People like me who purchased Puccini or Paganini will pay a reasonable upgrade feee. BTW, Puccini's software upgrade has just released.(1.0x to 1.01)