Digital Front End: Critical Listening

I don't follow Bemoptil, I use a Levisnon 360S DAC. In the original post I said that I was comparing the Levinson to a newer Marantz DVD player, one of the better ones. To restate my original suggestion, maybe the newer DAC's are almost equal to older one's like my Levinson. There's about 5 years difference between the build dates. I'm gearing up to finally build a pair of DIY speakers that should be the last word in resolution, IMHO. Using the new E-Speaker G3 ribbon and 2 San Seak 15W's (5") per side in an MTM. The trouble, and what delayed this project so long is whether to add woofer and make it a 3-way, or using a separate active subwoofer per side. My room is only 12 by 20 by 8. With the 3-way design, I'd have trouble keeping the enclosure narrow due to the large volume required.

No opinion yet just my experience in the last month.

I figured it was time to let the B&W CDM9NT's sing. Speaker Cable upgrade. Huge difference especially in the bottom end. With B&K Pre and Amp. Interconnect upgrade difference ???. Then there goes the allowance Upgrade to Musical Fidelity A308 integrated. Nice sound out of my Denon DVD 2800 II which I had just purchased to replace my Denon DVD 2800. At this point I am a goner. Added Musical fidelity Tri-Vista tube DAC. After about a week of burn in with the Denon as the transport beautiful difference, more open and warm sound. Had trouble with the transport in the 2800II and returned it (Fedup with Denon). Purchased the Sony DVPNS999ES DVD SACD player. Beautiful fixed base transport. The music became brighter and not as warm as the Denon but very pleasing. At this point I blew a crossover and then a cone in the CDM9NT. My dealer loaned me a pair of DunAudio speakers so I could break in the system and still have music. Over the next week I A-B the Sony and the Tri-Vista many many times there was no audible difference to my ear. Reaching the frustation point a 2400.00 DAC aginst a 900.00 DVD and no audible difference. I took the Sony to my favorite audio store for a different ear and a listen. We used 308 Integrated to keep things the same. The only differnece was the Speaker Cable and the Speakers. Still no audible difference to my ear. There was to the salesman whom by the way I trust. A-B'd the Sony and the Tri-Vista for about an hour. Then we switched to the Musical Fidelity A308 CD Player using it as a transport nice difference over the Sony in all respects. A-B the 308CD and the Tri-vista DAC shall we say to my ear the DAC was warmer and more refined is it worth going separates over a CD player, I don't know yet I am looking for a good transport as I spent my allowance it will have to be used and mid-grade.
It will probably take another month to get the system together I will post again at that time. Remember to take the system as a whole.

Hmm, my $1500 DVD/SACD player SONY DVP-S9000ES vs old $300-400 Arcam ALPHA6 player just lost. I have already placed full review on Audiogon and Audioreview. I was so dissapointed with SONY.
(SONY was playing SACD layer of hybrid SACD disk, Arcam CD layer). I was using MF A300 amp and Thiel 3.6 speakers.

Artisen65,

You make some good points, looks like transport synergy might be the issue. My local stereo guy always refers to a CEC transport he once owned as his reference. I read somewhere that Parasound sold a similar design under their banner that was made by CEC. Both are belt driven. With my Sony I was trying to have digital separates and a good SACD player in one. Now I'm starting to think about mod's to the Sony, Richard Kern's in particular. Thanks for the good feedback.

Two things:
1) your Transport is the weakest link - get it modded

2) THe ML360S is very good, but also can be better once modded