[Hershon2000]

You misinterpreted my post but it was probably my fault for not clarifying it more. The gist is that I was going to buy someones E-5 for $500 based on the remarks on this forum & the guy lived an hour away from me. Based on prior experiences of buying equipment without hearing it first, I made the guy a deal to drive it down to me for which I'd give him a $100 cash non-refundable & if after a few hours I didn't want it, he'd take it home & if I wanted it, I'd give him the remaining $400 cash. The E-5 was in excellent condition & had been played regularly for a year by him. Anyway, everything I played sounded deader then a doorknob. There was no warmth, sweetness, richness, anything. No juice. I tried a bunch of different cables & it still sounded the same. For my personal experience it sucks.

 

[Mr.Shadow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevieo the better the amp, the better the g08 will sound. you will appreciate it with a great amp over many other sources & it has balanced outputs. you may find it neutral & boring with mediocre amps. the g08 makes the best amps sound great & is non-exciting with the mediocre stuff. the e5 makes a great transport with an outboard dac. but, the analogue outputs are harsh to my ears. the rega apollo sounds very warm & is superb with your lesser headphone amps. so, it all depends on the amp you plan on using with the superb g08. the g08 really requires the best amps to show it's strengths. p.m. me if you have any amps in mind & i may be able to recommend a digital source.

That is very helpfull info indeed, I am planning to use with my SLAM MPX3(rest of rig in the Sig)
I will not use my cheaper phones with that, they are for sale now, its W5000 time

I don't know how good you concider the MPX3 when you say the G08 reuires a good amp to sound at its best.

I like the E5 but I have never heared a CDP that cost around 1K$ and above, so I am just trieng to see if I can get something better.

The G08 seems to be a killer source, high class. it's a bit more expensive than what I initialy wanted to but its an upertunity I think I should take advantage of.

I have a feeling that after I will listen to the G08 and Like it, it will be seld and I wont be able to buy a new unit because it will be too expensive

 

[markmaxx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Shadow The G08 seems to be a killer source, high class. it's a bit more expensive than what I initialy wanted to but its an upertunity I think I should take advantage of. I have a feeling that after I will listen to the G08 and Like it, it will be seld and I wont be able to buy a new unit because it will be too expensive

The Meridian 508/588/are great sounding units and are for sale used on audiogon alot.

 

[drarthurwells]

The E5 is very reliable.

Thousands sold with very few problems - though it seems eveyone with a problem announces it here.

Rega Apollo has a very nice tone and is very smooth (from its soft tone edges relative to the sharp tone edges of the E5). It has good bass but perhaps not as good as the E5. If you have any problem in your signal path the Apollo offers forgiveness. If not, the sound will be even better.

The E5 is slightly more resolving and detailed, and slightly leaner in tone, than the Apollo. It has a slightly better soundstage in separating instruments than the Apollo, and gives slightly more of a 3-D quality to tones in empty space. You need everything to be good in the signal path with the E5 or you will get edginess or harshness to tone edges, and hardness to the tone body, and less sharply separated 3-D imaging.

The E5 is better in some systems, while the Apollo is better in others.

 

[Mr.Shadow]

Would you say an MPX3 Slam and AT W5000 are a good path

?
btw, IC are XLO Ultra.

 

[JaGWiRE]

I love my e5, I use it even when I am using my computer becaues it's such a damn good source.

Don't listen to Hershon, I believe he's the dude who had his E5 hooked up to his reciever (via digital out) and was whining about the sound quality when he was using 5.1 speakesr and RBCD'S. What a joke.

I am extraordinarily happy with my purchase, and this thing is built like a brick, if you can deal with the fact it's double the size of the NAD, or Cambridge offerings, then go for it, it's a damn good player.

 

[chesebert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JaGWiRE I love my e5, I use it even when I am using my computer becaues it's such a damn good source. Don't listen to Hershon, I believe he's the dude who had his E5 hooked up to his reciever (via digital out) and was whining about the sound quality when he was using 5.1 speakesr and RBCD'S. What a joke. I am extraordinarily happy with my purchase, and this thing is built like a brick, if you can deal with the fact it's double the size of the NAD, or Cambridge offerings, then go for it, it's a damn good player.

ah..now you mentioned it I do remember the whole deal with Hershon..he was stupid in the way he tested E5. kinda worthless if you ask me. anyway..Eastsound are warm, detailed and have great soundstage. Zhaolu is better in soundstage but Eastsound is better in all other aspects.

 

[JaGWiRE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chesebert ah..now you mentioned it I do remember the whole deal with Hershon..he was stupid in the way he tested E5. kinda worthless if you ask me. anyway..Eastsound are warm, detailed and have great soundstage. Zhaolu is better in soundstage but Eastsound is better in all other aspects.

He was using the Esound from what I remember as an transport to a reciever that was mixing stereo to 5.1. IMO, you'll never get amazing 5.1 if you mix it from stereo using algorithims off a reciever (or from what I've heard at my uncles place atleast), if you want good 5.1, buy high res formats and movies.. Heh.

 

[swt61]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JaGWiRE He was using the Esound from what I remember as an transport to a reciever that was mixing stereo to 5.1. IMO, you'll never get amazing 5.1 if you mix it from stereo using algorithims off a reciever (or from what I've heard at my uncles place atleast), if you want good 5.1, buy high res formats and movies.. Heh.

There is no way that the DAC in an older reciever is going to compete with the E5 to begin with. If you're going to use the E5 as a transport you'd better have a pretty nice DAC to raise the level of SQ.

 

[Hershon2000]

Before I go on, if you like the sound of this, fine. Quite simply, almost none of these items are reviewed on any other hi-fi sites specialising on reviews so I would speculate that people who hype these items have an agenda. I can only tell you my experience which people here, for whatever reason, wish to distort & deny with ridiculous spins that make no sense such as when the Government denied Roswell space ships existed because they said that people mistook weather ballons that were launched 2 years after the Roswell incident for UFO's- yeah makes perfect sense!

One more time. I tried out for a fee of $100 the E-5 that had beeen used & kept in excellent condition from someone with the agreement that I'd pay him $400 more if I liked it. I connected the E5 initially by analogue cables, tried 3 different sets for the record, to my Denon 3801 A/V receiver. This receiver will play 2 speaker sound, 2 speaker & subwoofer, 5 speakers & subwoofer & 7 speakers & subwoofer. It's 735 watts & originally listed for $1200. I personally prefer to listen to CDs in 5.1 channel stereo which does not reprocess the sound except for the center speaker which combines the left & right outputs. Anyway, the sound on this player sucked on 2 channel sound, 2.1 sound, 5.1 sound sound etc. I also tried to connect the player with a digital cable. Again the sound sucked. It had no life, balls or sweetness. I even tried listeneing to it on headphones. Guess what, it still sucked. The sound of my Pioneer PD-59 CD player as well as their PD-65 player is so superior to this its not funny. I play mainly 60/70's remastered rock & blues CDs. On my set up the sound is best connected by optical cable. Anyway, if you heard the E-5 & like it great. All I can tell you is it sucked for me & I won't get any products hyped on here unless I see numerous reviews on several web sites under reviews.

 

[Snake]

Upon thought, I wonder if the E5 is better than the Olive Symphony - which via a DAC got an almost "perfect" rating

http://stereophile.com/mediaservers/406olive/

Quote:

Being able to select from its library at a touch of the remote made musical browsing effortless. Going back to feeding CDs into the Mark Levinson transport seemed quaint by comparison. Sonically, using the server to feed digital data to my high-end system, the Symphony seemed beyond reproach. Of course, both my D/As have excellent jitter rejection, but no aspect of the sound gave a clue that I was listening to audio data being pulled in packets from a hard drive rather than being streamed continuously from an optical disc. Perhaps, in direct comparison with a CD being played on the Levinson, the uncompressed 16-bit file played on the Olive had slightly less image depth and LF definition, and was a bit more forward a presentation, but this wasn't anything I could reliably detect without being able to switch back and forth.

, and factoring in a combination of DAC / analog playback quality (together) got a Stereophile Class "C" overall - considering that the Olive Symphony is about the same price as the E5 and offers 80GB HDD music server to boot.

The Olive's drives got a very nice 308 picosecond or so (depending upon analog / digital out) test result...

Hmmm. Is the Olive not getting enough love here? Is this indeed FOTM?

Just thinking for people here.

Or...

what about the Alesis MasterLink ML-9600? A Stereophile Class A rating - currently on sale from numerous places for $799.99!! (one place is even "throwing" in 50 CD-R's) Woah!

Class A sound, a CD-R burner and a 40GB music server...all wrapped up in a single $800 package?!!! It's even available B-stock with a 20GB drive for $699! It's jitter performance is almost stunning at 176 picosecond on CD, very good at 275 picoseconds off the HDD, just with some low-frequency random jitter and a 'not perfect' digital noise floor.

A music server, CD player, CD copier / burner and Stereophile-backed Class A sound...starting at $699. And once purchased Balanced Power Technology offers Stereophile-recommended mods, too.

Is the E5 / Chinese goods the best way to go here?