[gevorg]

Pico vs Cantate 2.

How do they compare and what are the differences in sound?

 

[mbd2884]

How can you compare a portable to a home amplifier?

Of course the Cantate will blow it away.

 

[krmathis]

Depends what you're looking for.
Portability wise the Cantate 2 are no match against the Pico, while sound wise I would not be surprised if its the other way around.

 

[gevorg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mbd2884 /img/forum/go_quote.gif How can you compare a portable to a home amplifier? Of course the Cantate will blow it away.

LOL! Just because something is portable doesn't automatically mean that its worse. Pico is not at the level of your typical portable amp, it has very good feedback here and some respectable head-fiers (like Iron_Dreamer) were happy to downgrade to it from high-end dac/amp combos.

Anyone here heard both Pico and Cantate and can give some feedback/comments on the differences in sound?

 

[Icarium]

Yeah sorry while in most cases home amps trump most portables... I've yet to hear a Meier amp that doesn't sound to me thin/anemic and underpowered even when compared to a decent portable like the Pico/AE-2.

Maybe the Cantate is different. I topped out at experiencing the Opera (Along with several others that were lower priced like the Aria/Corda?/Head5).

 

[Downer]

I have owned both at some point. Pico has a superb DAC yet I cant say the same for Cantate. It is still very pleasant to listen with certain cans such as HD6xx. The amp section of the Cantate is very good imo and Pico was lacking in that department still way better than most of the portables I have heard. if you pair Cantate with a decent DAC or a source, you won't regret the results. But you end up paying for the DAC that you won't be using. I would say get a decent desktop amp if you dont need portability.

 

[qusp]

hehe nice one. its good to see some level conversation here. as usual someone came in and said that of course because its portable there is no contest. even without hearing either one of them it would seem. its time wasters like that that make this place a bit annoying sometimes. the pico dac is amazing and the amp isnt half bad either. obviously the amp section in the pico is going to lose out power wise to the home amp, but the dac is very good indeed and competes very favorably with many home dacs. and if you pair the pico dac with a nice home amp then you have a winner that you can also take out on the road with you if desired. I havent heard the candate; but I imaging the amp itself is pretty good, but as a dac/amp the pico is hard to beat for the price