Transports and DACs

Moderator: JackD201

Transports and DACs

Postby Oldfogey » Tue Jun 10, 2008 3:34 pm

Oldfogey here, and I'm deaf in one ear below 200hz, or at least that's what the learned ones at St Lukes tell me. What does that have to do with transports and DACs? Probably something, but I'm not obsessive anyway.

I will say that in my system, and to my tin ears, nothing has ever worked as well as a belt-drive transport and a non-oversampling DAC. OK, ok, ok, for Led Zep, The Who, and Black Sabbath fans, this combo may not be the one, but I listen mostly to different stuff anyway.

I value purity in the mids above all. If Billie Holiday can't make me cry, or Monk set my toes tapping, or Bill Evans bring back a bittersweet moment, it ain't working. Tone, timbre, decay, and harmonic richness do it for me.
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Postby JackD201 » Wed Jun 11, 2008 12:41 am

Here's a tale of polar opposites

I own an Emmlabs Transport and Dac combo, I think it embodies the best in digital, fantastic bass neutral mids and highs that are edgy only with really bad recordings then I heard their alteregos the Zanden Transport and Dac combo. Now here's the twist. The Zanden combo sounds so analog it beats many modern and vintage table-arm-cart-phonostages at their own game. At $40,000, I suppose it had better be good. Well it is. These two represent digital's potential or rather the latest generations of two divergent branches of evolution. I could live with either but wish I could live with both.

On the real world pairings:

Any old Pioneer with a stable platter transport with disengageable Legato Link and a Musical Fidelity X24k (the old cylindrical one). So warm and smooth that the addition of an X10D actually does more harm than good.

Sony DVD player as transport into Proceed AVP2 built in processor chipset. The Proceed shares the same chipset as my No.360s DAC and the sound bears this out. Good digital for those that are forced to integrate their music and theater systems.
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Postby mullard88 » Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:21 pm

The best I've heard is the 47 lab pitracer transport with its matching DAC.
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Re: Transports and DACs

Postby mullard88 » Sat Jun 05, 2010 4:13 pm

47 lab flatfish cd transport combined with Berkeley dac
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