[RnB180]

Just wondering,
How high of a cd player must one go, before it matches the DAC in the headroom max dac?

 

[TheSloth]

I personally couldn't tell the difference between whatever Meridian player Tyll carries with him and the balanced Max DAC, a/b'ing. I think it's a discontinued player, but I believe it's sonics are considered to be fairly current?

 

[bhd812]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheSloth I personally couldn't tell the difference between whatever Meridian player Tyll carries with him and the balanced Max DAC, a/b'ing. I think it's a discontinued player, but I believe it's sonics are considered to be fairly current?

I think it is the 588 HR has..
its a unusually type of sound from a meridian.

RNB= I love the HR dacs bu I have no clue what player would be on the same level.

 

[Trogdor]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheSloth I personally couldn't tell the difference between whatever Meridian player Tyll carries with him and the balanced Max DAC, a/b'ing. I think it's a discontinued player, but I believe it's sonics are considered to be fairly current?

Hmmmmm.......

Well, let's put it this way: High-end CDP usually employ 6-8 DACs in the unit as well as various different filtering techniques to tune the sound so its hard to compare. I've listened to the MAX DAC several times and its a good setup in the Balanced Reference (I believe there are actually 4 DACs in it though Tyll knows best). However, there are real audible differences between say a MAX DAC and a Meridian G08, SCD-1, Cary, etc.

Personally, I think the CDPs I mentioned are superior but the MAX DAC is certainly no slouch. Its also very convient to have an all-in-one setup.

 

[tkam]

You really don't have to go that high the crystal 4398 dac is used in many players at nearly every price range. Which gets to my point that the dac is only as good as its surrounding parts let it be. So don't base anything soley on what dac a cdp uses.

 

[lan]

Well that depends how you like your sound. I believe SPDIF degrades the quality so you take a few steps back. I'm not a fan of asynchronous resampling so that's another steps back for me. So the DAC's implementation would really have to be up there to "make up" for those for me. Quality is obviously one thing but the presentation is another. If I don't like the presentation then the quality is nearly irrelevant. I agree that it doesn't matter what chip the DAC uses but how it's implemented.

As for not telling a difference between player and DAC hooked up to it, I think DACs take on the sound of the transport somewhat thus making it harder to tell the difference. But to hear the DAC really, I like to try it on different transports.

 

[TheSloth]

The only CD-P I ever compared it to in my home was a QUAD 99 CD-P/2, which seems to be fairly indicative of the best performers around the $1.5k mark, and the Max DAC was better. Not a huge margin, but it was there. I'm not sure it's going to compete with CD players much further up the pecking order, but at that particular price level it really is up there.

 

[Luco]

To those that are using the Max DAC, which (digital) connection are you using it with and how expensive is the cable?