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Musical Fidelity A3 24 What R My Ears Telling Me?

I think that I have finally lost my mind from tweaking! I was very excited about this product when I bought it. I thought that it made a tremendous differnce with the players I was using (an Adcom & Pioneer). The Soundstage was enhanced, the music jumped from the speakers. This was indeed the Holy Grail of Upsampling DACS. The problem started when I bought a new player...the new Sony DVP-NS999ES. Now I can have SACD and pristine Redbook SACD like quality CD's through the MF DAC! The first problem is that when the Sony is turned on with the DAC on. a pop comes through the speakers which causes the DAC to downsample to nearly Real Audio quality! This is remidied by turning the DAC off, then on. The "downsampling" happens every so often when the draw is opend and closed. I thought it might be the interconnet, so I swapped out a Audio Quest for a Tara Lab and it continued to happen. OK, so I could probably live with this since the vendors from both retailers I bought these items from have never heard of this happening. I went to the MF website but there is no email address for support or questions. OK, I can live with this. Now here is the tricky part. I decided to play some CD's through the player bypassing the DAC and for Gods sake...they sound better without upsampling! The bass extension is better, the music has more "oomph" and clarity (how can that be??) and the sound is warmer. Can the DAC's be better in the Sony than the MF? Did I trick myself into believing that the MF worked to begin with? Have I completly tweaked myself out of my mind and ears? I have done countless A-B comparisons during the past 2-3 weeks and I must be honest, the CD's sound much better without the MF DAC. Any comments and opinions would be apprecitated.

-Joseph Benzola-
jbenzola
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
I have no personal experience with either of your units, but I for one am certainly willing to believe what you're hearing is the truth. The only fly in the ointment is that the other problems you detail would seem to make it questionable whether or not the DAC is functioning entirely properly, either by itself or in combination with the new player. However, since nowhere do you say that you think the MF, when assumed to be working correctly, sounds any different than you remember it sounding before you got the Sony, I'd say it might be time to downsize it. (You might find it interesting to click on my >Threads< below, and read the one entitled, "Upsampling put to the test: Are you ready?")
cosmic_void
142 posts
 
My guess is that the A3-24 is defective. Take it to the shop where you purchased it from and have them do a side by each comparison with a known good unit. If I'm not mistaken, Sam Tellig had a defective A3-24 for his first review sample - it can happen. And although the Sony ES series stuff is of very excellant quality I find it hard to believe that the DVD player should sound better than a DAC that has been raved about by more than just a few members of the audio press. Good luck.
socrates
247 posts
 
Joseph,

I have 2 guesses. 1, also that the unit may be defective, which was common with the first batch of these as mentioned, but no problems on newer units, at least according to my dealer. Second guess is that the Sony makes for a poor transport. I've paired my MF A3 24 dac with a handful of transports, and, for example, it sounded plain awful with my DVD player, mundane with a Pioneer elite cd player or Jolida JD100 as tranpsorts. When attached to a Theta dedicated transport its pure magic. There is no way the Sony 999 can touch it in redbook, even in sacd with the Sony I would probably still favor the MF on redbook for a more fleshed out presentation while still having exceptional openness, clarity, smoothness, presence, detail retrieveal and extension into the heavens, this on the hundreds of cd's I own, not just the 5 SACD would ever buy with what is out there currently. It really can be that good. Again, this dac is extremely transport dependent, what may have worked with other dacs won't for sure work with this one, at least in my experience with it. If garbage goes into the dac on more trash comes out, it is highly revealing and unforgiving.
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