Yesterday I borrowed an almost-new REVO CDP-2 unit from my brick&mortar dealer for try-out. It is still in break-in, but...
Without going into too much detail - my own "spare DAC" the RME ADI2 DAC fs sounds extremely basic and blunt in direct comparison. But what's really interesting: Even my beloved Denafrips DDC+DAC stack sounds rather... unrefined and crude, again in direct comparison.
Last year I did some Denafrips comparisons with other borrowed units: T+A DAC200 and Aurender A200. Overall I much preferred the Denafrips combo, but this time... not really.
Last year's T+A DAC200 featured impressive detail as well, but went a little overboard doing so and broke the music (PCM).
The Aurender A200 was a fine AKM based device, which sound very detailled, smooth and clean, but 0% emotional to my ears. YMMV
I mostly do streaming (Qobuz & Tidal lossless) through an Auralic Aries streamer. Some red book CD rips are available as well. In other words: 100% PCM listener here.
The CDP-2's combination of focus, speed, detail -- all without "breaking the music" is pretty impressive, at least to my ears. I listened until late at night yesterday, amazed by musical details and nuances I missed so far in tracks that I listened to over and over again on other systems already.
No digital sheen at all.
Even more impressive: It's in the price range of above mentioned products, roughly.
Without going into too much detail - my own "spare DAC" the RME ADI2 DAC fs sounds extremely basic and blunt in direct comparison. But what's really interesting: Even my beloved Denafrips DDC+DAC stack sounds rather... unrefined and crude, again in direct comparison.
Last year I did some Denafrips comparisons with other borrowed units: T+A DAC200 and Aurender A200. Overall I much preferred the Denafrips combo, but this time... not really.
Last year's T+A DAC200 featured impressive detail as well, but went a little overboard doing so and broke the music (PCM).
The Aurender A200 was a fine AKM based device, which sound very detailled, smooth and clean, but 0% emotional to my ears. YMMV
I mostly do streaming (Qobuz & Tidal lossless) through an Auralic Aries streamer. Some red book CD rips are available as well. In other words: 100% PCM listener here.
The CDP-2's combination of focus, speed, detail -- all without "breaking the music" is pretty impressive, at least to my ears. I listened until late at night yesterday, amazed by musical details and nuances I missed so far in tracks that I listened to over and over again on other systems already.
No digital sheen at all.
Even more impressive: It's in the price range of above mentioned products, roughly.
