Resolution Audio - Cantata

I found this blog that has some information about the Stereophile review of the Cantata as well as some other computer audio. I thought the review was pretty good, but could have talked more about the sound of the DAC especially through the USB with Pure Music and iTunes.

Ken

http://gnscblog.wordpress.com/

The Stereophile review omitted much of any description of how the Resolution Audio Cantata sounded. John Iverson did a good job of checking out all of the different ways in which one can get digital signals to the Cantata and said that all of those ways produced a good result. He omitted mention of how well it performs as a CD player. (I can comment on that: It's a great CD player.)

While it was a great review, I think that Mr. Iverson did not do the Cantata justice in that it is even better than he described. That the Cantata is flexible is pretty obvious. It would have been nice had Mr. Iverson done more to explain the more subjective and less obvious qualities of the Cantata. I think that he would have left an even more positive impression than the already great review.

I felt the same way about the review. Jon Iverson is an experienced reviewer who is well thought of and normally does a fine job with reviews. It is interesting he used a Marantz A/V preamp for listening and comparisons. It would seem there would be much better choices to evaluate a CD player the quality of the Cantata.

Along with using the Marantz AV Preamp for the review I was surprised that the Ayre QB-9 was considered the standard for comparison. I have listened to Ayre, Esoteric, Macintosh, Audio Research, Bel Canto, and other players and have not heard a Player/Server sound as musical as the Cantata. The one area I do agree with John Iverson on is that at $6000 the Cantata is a bargain. I plan to enjoy mine for many years.

Although this is a thread on the Cantata, I wonder what speakers are paired with the C-50.

Anyone has a success story to share?