Is Exemplar the answer?

I have been having some problems with my Exemplar 2900. This post is meant in no bad way to John, some of the issues have been caused by my own addition of a SDI output board for outputting video which appears to be causing issues with the standard as well as enhanced ouputs. John has been 100% helpful and has continued to work with me to help solve these issues.

My latest issue (now the valve driven outputs are working fine) is a loud popping/cracking through my speakers, regardless of pre-amp volume.

I wonder if this could be caused by the clipping of my analogue line stage? Its a EAD thetermaster 8800Pro.

I began to wonder about this because of the comment in the six moons review which stated, "The output tubes are Amperex 7062s, which increase RedBook output to 3 volts, 50% higher than the industry standard."

If I run this input into the direct analogue inputs which are passed unprocessed to the ouputs I get this bad popping/cracking sound. If I run the inputs to the EAD re-digitising inputs I get a much less muted, almost clipping pf the peaks type sound.

Has anybody else had any issues with clipping of linestages, especially EAD ones?

Once again, I just want to reiterate than Johns support has been first rate and I wouldnt hesitate to do business with him again.

I just asked EAD about a 3V input to their unit and got the following reply. Any thoughts?

1) The maximum recommended input on the 8-channel Analog Direct input of the TheaterMaster 8800 is 2.0 Vrms, although hard clipping does not occur until 2.6 Vrms. This is normal behavior for standard line-level signals. I would recommend that you build or have someone build you some L-pad attenuators for all analog channels that exceed 2.0 Vrms. For best performance it is good to keep well below the clipping point.

If you wish to construct L-pads, please remember that the input impedance of the various Analog Direct channels is as follows: LF, RF 10K; all other channels 5 K. You can take advantage of this to simplify your L-pads to a single resistor:
For the LF and RF, place 5K in series with the signal.
For the CT, LS, RS, SUB, LB, RB, place 2.5K in series.
Best type of resistor is nichrome, but metal film should be OK too.
These values will attenuate 3 Vrms to 2 Vrms. If your CD player output is higher, you'll need to calculate some higher values.

I noticed that many modded players output higher than the stock player. Why is that?

Any update on the Exemplar 2900 vs APL 1000?

Well, I cannot tell you much yet, as the Exemplar is still burning in. I will say so far I like the APL better as far as the soundstage, musicality(the ability to draw me in), magic midrange(could be WE 300B's/Cardinal X1's), and the seeming hang time of guitar. Now I must say I listen mainly to older Rock/Jazz/Blues....not much classical. The Exemplar seems a bit more extended so far(But I am having Alex build me a 3910 also)the bass is a bit better on the Exemplar. I really cannot give my exact opinion at this time also cause my ear is clogged, and music in general just does not sound right. I will tell you after about 200 hours of burnin the exemplar is picking itself up. Now, for me, I need 2 players, 1 with video for HT/SS and 1 for 2 channel/Tubes, and so far I am not unhappy with either one, but, because of my obsession I will keep on trucking to search for the best under 10K used.