Playback designs followup?

In my opinion, the Playback Designs MPS-5 is among the very best. I have not personally heard better. I also own the AMR CD-77, and, to my ear, the Playback Designs player is better, although not by an overwhelming margin. I have not personally heard any digital source that comes close to the performance of these two CD players.

What I've said in the past still holds. I've compared the MPS-5 directly to the Emm single box solution, the Esoteric multi-box solution, the Marantz S7 and a few other units on a less direct comparison. The MPS-5 is still my favorite in every respect.

PD has just issued a firmware update that I haven't tried yet. The tell us that it improves the RBCD playback even further. I hope to download it this weekend and report on that. Right now I'm very pleased, but if they can improve that even further, then I'm even more deeply positive.

Sorry, but it'll be a few days before I get to installing the firmware update.

Dave

I've owned the MPS-5 for about 4 months now.

During this time I've also had the P03-D03 with rubidium clock and the Wadia 9 series driven by an Esoteric UX1. First off, the Wadia sound is distinctly different from the MPS-5 and Esoteric sound. The Wadia offers stunning clarity with precise rendition of attack and transients and a very black background. One tends to hear notes in acoustic space rise and fall.

The Esoteric stack, particularly when upsampling CDs to DSD offers a slightly more diffuse sound where the edges of attack are rougher. It is as if the sound has taken on more volume and is less pristine but perhaps more organic. The MPS-5 reminds me of the Esoteric stack. It has a slightly more closed in top-end, a characteristic ameliorated with the use of cable and a bit more mid-bass bloom. For example, in solo piano, the lower registers appear to move more air through the MPS5 than through the Esoteric. I find this aspect to be quite realistic and it reminds me of the singular virtue of the ARC Ref Two Mark I preamp I once owned.

I would say that the Wadia offers a nice contrast to either the MPS-5 or Esoteric stack. The MPS-5 in its stead offers tremendous value for its sonics when compared to the costly Esoteric stack. When playing SACDs, esp. recently recorded ones, the sound on either unit is spectacular and provides distance from the as-of-today redbook limited Wadia.