Any better DAC then dCS Scarlatti?

Wflm,

how could you isolate the Scarlatti form the rest of the system and room?

The only way to isolate a CD player is to ideally compare it head-to-head with another one while keeping all other elements in the chain unchanged including the room. (Even then you have the synergy variable: player A may be preferable to player B in system X but not in system Y.) That is not always feasible, especially for the rare top-tier components. Before posting above, I've followed this thread for 10 days and it appears that the original poster has not had much luck yet in getting any ideal head-to-head comparisons (except for Stereophile's). So, I figured my non-ideal comparison may be of some use, since it also re-enforces Perrew's observation. I was careful to preface my remarks with the qualifier "For what it's worth", I explicitly stated that I heard the Scarlatti under show conditions (which are usually not ideal), and I expressed my conclusion as my "preference", not some absolute statement. I believe that my statement is reasonably qualified.

When I was shopping to upgrade my speakers and amp, I traveled around the country to audition top-tier components. On some of the trips I even took my NWO player, cables and power cord with me. As I said above, I strongly preferred my previous NWO-3.0SE to all other players I heard (in systems worth up to $500K). My recent upgraded NWO-4.0SE is a significant enhancement of the 3.0SE. I'll post a review of it soon.

If your current assessment of the 6 players you listed above entails head-to-head comparisons in the same listening room, then your observations may be valuable to the original poster, provided his sonic preferences are similar to yours.

Peace

Murataltuev,

I posted the link to the Scarlatti system I heard previously. With Focal speakers and ASR. Ive heard the Focals on several occasions all the models, I attach a link where you can see some of thesystems Ive heard including some of the sources mentioned. Since Ive heard all the Focals and the ASR on several occasions I think I have a pretty good grasp of their "sound" and can dissect the Scarlatti sound pretty well. So I second Puremusics finds, the NWO-3.0-SE was better than all the other sources Ive heard and the NWO-4.0-SE is significantly better.
As for cheap price tag Im not sure what youre referring to but if you mean the APL has a lower price than the DCS stack and therefore should not be better. I would take into account what the DCS costs factory direct, I figure a lot less then what the dealers charge. Anyway the thing with the APL is that people that havent heard it cant imagine how good it will sound and I havent seen any APL NWO-4.0-SE owners looking for another DAC like some other owners of the so called top dacs do. The only ones that dont seem to like it are the ones that havent heard it. Many owners of the NWO dont post and read this site and own or has owned pretty much all of the mentioned machines and thinks one of them is far superior. Im really looking forward to Puremusics review!

Perrew - Tak for det. Min dansk er bestemt rustne, saa vil skift to engelsk...

My ambition is to control the variables such that I can isolate the DAC in question. We shall see whether such is feasible - as already noted, securing each DAC for home audition is proving non trivial.

Am intrigued by the APL but wonder if it is "Retail" ready, that is: debugged, robust, serviceable. These are characteristics ancillary to the sonic virtues but essential if a piece of kit is to prove (relatively) carefree.

To be fair such is a concern I've about several pieces on my list: MPS-5, EMM XDS1, Stahl Tek, and for the Boulder its ethernet capability.

I will touch base with APL and see whether they can oblige with a demo unit.

Wflm,

IT IS RETAIL READY!

For the 4.0-SE they went through 18 versions of the software before they were totally happy. It is debugged, robust and serviceable.
I owned the 3.0-SE before and had no problems with it and now have the 4.0-SE and never had any problem with it.

Wflm, sorry should have added the APL comes with 3 year warranty no matter what the problem is.