pbarach I am not sure I know how your question relates to my point. Fwiw, I find a very clear difference between SACD and redbook CD and am surprised people would deny one. Are such people saying that the best redbook players will remove any difference, or that the same hybrid CD will sound...

I have little sympathy with the retailers based on my impressions of classical recordings. I have a second hand Marantz SA-7001 CD/SACD player which I listen to through MF X-Can V2. It sounds great on SACDs. For redbook I use a Rega Planet with MF X-Can V3 and X-Dac V3, these last two with an...

*Bump*

I recently bought a second hand Marantz SA 7001 in order to listen to SACDs alongside my main rig - Rega Planet, Musical Fidelity X CAN v3, X-PSU v3 & X-DAC v3. I was surprised to find that the SACD signal doesn't work with the digital output on the Marantz. Perhaps I shouldn't have been...

Many thanks for the replies so far, they are really helpful. I am sorely tempted by the Monarchy NM24 but fear that with import duty and sales tax (VAT) in the UK it is out of my price range. I am still keen on the Channel Islands VDA 2 and that has the advantages of being a little cheaper...

Thanks for the replies so far. Monarchy looks interesting. Cal Audio has gone out of business so it might be hard to obtain their DAC. Any other ideas? Is a DAC the right way to go?

I just missed out on purchasing a Musical Fidelity X-DAC v3, have decided this might be fate and that I should seek advice on where to go next. I have an old Arcam Alpha 9 (SE, I think) CD player feeding a Musical Fidelity X-CAN v3 and Grado SR 325i headphones. The Musical Fidelity has a...

Davesrose I need to go closed because of my wife. My Grados are a bit too open for her when watching TV. Otherwise I would probably stick with my existing set-up. Thanks for the comments so far. Hopefully pushing this to the top will elicit more.

I currently own a pair of Grado SR 235i which I use with a Rega Ear headphone amp. I listen to classical music and want to get a new pair of headphones, but closed this time. Current possibilities from reading threads here are Beyerdynamic DT 770, Auto Technica ATH-A900 (or possibly...

Rob I live in the UK and I am not sure the Toshiba Gigabeat is available here. It certainly doesn't show up in many places. At best you see the 20gb version but even that doesn't seem to be in stock anywhere. Martin

I would like some advice please. I have a Creative Zen Touch 20gb with which I am very happy. But, it is full, very full. Compounding this is that I am ripping cds at ever high bit rates (currently 320kbit/s but this is not high enough). My cd collection is entirely classical, and I listen...

Many thanks for the replies. They are very helpful. I feel I am heading for the Etymotic after reading these comments, with a handful of extra small foam tips to start with. I was not heading in this direction before this thread - I was likely to plump for the Shure. Hope I am right to...

I am shortly to go on a long flight and want to buy some headphones to use with my Creative Zen Touch on this and future trips. I am torn between a number of options. I am interested in Shure E2c and Etymotic Er-6i - sub £100 represents my price range. My reservations about IEMs are about...