Has anyone had a chance to compare Composer with iDSD NEO?
I sold my violectric dac v800 today and looking for a replacement.
I recently bought the Soloist 3XP so to add Burson DAC would be the right thing to do but...I was not a big fan of Sabre ESS sound in the past.
I had a tour NEO unit for 1 week and this is a really good performer which also supports mqa and costs 1/3 less than Composer.
Any thoughts? Thanks.
Firstly i think MQA is a scam. It's pitched with a great, compelling analogy, the origami analogy. It's marketing genius.
But I've got an LG V30+ and it has the hardware to decode MQA natively. I can't hear a difference between Tidal CD quality and tidal MQA studio masters. I can hear a difference between my other DACs decoding CD quality Flac or playing CDs. Chord qutest, burson conductor 3x, modded marantz CD80, cambridge audio 840C, A&K AK70 and AKSP1000M. All are audibly different to me. MQA isn't.
Plus people much smarter than me think the concept is a scam. Like Archimago's musings:
http://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/10/mqa-final-final-comment-simply-put-why.html?m=1
https://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6109
https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/mqa-a-review-of-controversies-concerns-and-cautions-r701/
I have a Conductor 3X ref in my main system for a year now and the DAC is great. Both for music and stereo AV and using it as a head amp and a preamp. Like watching news or other shows the clarity of the dialogue is exceptional. Plus it's insanely good for music. It beat all my existing equipment. I mainly bought it as a headamp in a package with LCD3s. But It is a better DAC than my Cambridge 840C and a better preamp than my musical fidelity nuvista. That was very unexpected. The nuvista is legendary, tiny metal tubes, #176 of 500 made.
I'd expect the soloist/composer to have the same synergy as the conductor. The conductor does have dual dacs while the composer is single but still, Burson are pretty serious about their products. I don't think they would release the soloist/composer pair unless it was on par with the conductor as they sell the pair for about the same as the one box solution.
But i haven't seen any reviews comparing them directly.
Based on
@raoultrifan posts i think the soloist just edges out the conductor as an amp. On paper the conductor should just edge out the composer as a DAC. But i expect these differences are very small and might be hard to pick up in blind testing.
But in my home office i now have a chord Qutest and Sparko Aries. I haven't done any back to back testing but the combination is absolutely spectacular through my LCD4s and LCDxc.
I love my burson gear. I've upgraded my marantz CD80 ten years ago with their opamps and low jitter digital clock plus new caps and a Philips double crown TDA1541A S2. I love my conductor it is awesome.
And the chord qutest/sparko aries combo has no remote or bluetooth so functionality rules it out for my main system. Those things don't matter on my home office desk. First impressions are that the Qutest/Aries combo is better SQ than the Conductor 3X Reference as a dac/headamp. The combo is insanely good.
Ive had a brief listen to my conductor with Sparko pro opamps in the LP stage. It seemed like a marked improvement. Now i need to find a viable fitting solution with the lid on
Key message is if you can get hold of a composer and Qutest and do a direct comparison do it. Eventually I'm going to test the Qutest in my main system against the Conductor but I'm going to have to buy some XLR to RCA connectors to do that.
But my current assessment is that the Qutest is sublime and an absolute bargain for the SQ it delivers. And Andrew Sparko has done an unbelievable job with the Aries. It is absolutely top shelf. The combo is unbelevieably detailed without sacrificing any musicality and it's not fatuiging at all.
Don't get me wrong i think Bursons gear is stellar and the conductor is the perfect solution for my main heaphone/speaker/music/AV system. It has awesome SQ as a dac, headamp and preamp.
Although God I'd love a suite of Chords top gear. Especially the m-scaler and the CD player. But my wife would castrate me. Fortunately the Qutest is an absolute bargain and while not cheap, it's great value.
