Any Serious Competitors in the same price range as the Arcam CD72T?

[braillediver]

The Arcam Sounds Incredible.

When you're done with the thread make sure you put it away.

 

[aeberbach]

It's funny nobody talks about the Ah! Njoe Tjoeb player any more... At $599 it's certainly price competitive. I doubt the DAC is quite up to the Arcam but proof is in the listening and I haven't.

 

[taoster]

the ART DIO DAC! It has a better sounding DAC then the Arcam 72 and cheaper.

 

[braillediver]

'

 

[yage]

Quote:

I can move up from the Arcam and get 80% of it's cost rolled into an upgrade. This is an investment.

That's a joke, right? Audio equipment is almost *never* an investment - unless you've got some vintage tubes. I'd say you'd be damn lucky to sell digital equipment for 50-66% of the original retail price - and that's for equipment around 1 - 2 years old.

If you're already contemplating selling a player that you don't even have, might as well scour the used market for an Arcam or Rega...

I had the Njoe Tjoeb for a few months but found the sound a bit rough around the edges - buying the upsampler might alleviate that problem, but that's another $300, pushing its price well beyond that of the Arcam.

 

[braillediver]

What Joke?

YMMV AFAIK FDIC USDA EIEIO

 

[SumB]

The Tjoeb is an interesting option, especially with the 24/192 upsampler on the very near horizon. It will bypass those yucky opamps once and for all. This could shape up to be a phenomenal unit for the money.

 

[yage]

Apparently, the Njoe Tjoeb will still have op-amps in the chain even with the upsampling board installed - here's a post from AA by Dan Wright:

"If I am not mistaken, the upsampler board uses an entirely different DAC. It appears to use a single stereo Analog Devices Delta-Sigma DAC. The stock op-amps from the original board are not used because a Delta-Sigma DAC has op-amps on-board, as well as built-in filtering."


Link to the post:
http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?f...mpler&session=

 

[SumB]

It's in Dan's best interest to speculate like that. He's not affiliated with Ah! or Upscale Audio in any way BTW.

I don't see any opamps, and those look like small signal transformers. I can tell you the upsampler is drawing from the pre-existing onboard supply of the Tjoeb, where the stock DAC assembly is disconnected.

 

[wasifazim]

Quote:

Originally posted by SumB It's in Dan's best interest to speculate like that. He's not affiliated with Ah! or Upscale Audio in any way BTW. I don't see any opamps, and those look like small signal transformers. I can tell you the upsampler is drawing from the pre-existing onboard supply of the Tjoeb, where the stock DAC assembly is disconnected.

Umm, read again what he wrote: "It appears to use a single stereo Analog Devices Delta-Sigma DAC. The stock op-amps from the original board are not used because a Delta-Sigma DAC has op-amps on-board, as well as built-in filtering."

Just about every delta-sigma DAC ever made (and every Analog Devices delta-sigma DAC) uses internal op amps..you can't see them because they're built into the DAC chip itself. Delta-sigma DACs are voltage-output, not current-output.

- Wasif.

 

[SumB]

So why the expense of signal transformers not needed? You think Ah! has nothing better to do than run the signal through yet another stage for optimum degredation?

 

[braillediver]

'

 

[wasifazim]

Quote:

Originally posted by SumB So why the expense of signal transformers not needed? You think Ah! has nothing better to do than run the signal through yet another stage for optimum degredation?

I can't tell you why they'd chose to do it. Plenty of CD player manufacturers use delta-sigma DACs but still use an analogue stage w/ op amps when they could just send the output of the DAC straight to the RCA jacks; Dan Wright is still entirely correct in this case. It's a well-established fact that delta-sigma DACs have built-in op amps. Try reading a spec sheet, or ask the folks on Audio Asylum and see what response you get.

- Wasif.

 

[wasifazim]

Here's a little article that should illustrate the difference between delta-sigma and multi-bit DACs: http://www.fortunecity.com/rivendell...da/vasfda.html ...note how it mentions that most delta-sigma DACs (other than those made by NPC) integrate the analogue stage.

braillediver: you shouldn't be so hung up on 24bit vs 16bit, some of the best (and most expensive) DACs on the planet (47 Labs and Zanden Audio products come to mind) use 16 bit DACs. That said, your Arcam CD72 doesn't upsample: yes, it has a 24 bit delta-sigma DAC, but if the input data is 16 bit, it just adds 8 zeros to complete the 24 bit input word. This is NOT the same as upsampling, which is what the Njoe Tjoeb's upsampler does. Again, for further info on upsampling, do a search on the web or Audio Asylum.

- Wasif.

 

[SumB]

Thanks for the informative link. Although we won't be able to ascertain the sum of parts until this product hits the street. It looks similar to what Heart has accomplished with its CD6000 from my point of view.

We'll have to wait and see...