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Puccini+Uclock vs APL NWO 4.0 SE vs PD MPS-5

Surely some of you have compared these 3 CD-SACD players, the Puccini with the U-clock vs the others two, my questions is how they compares between them, mostly when are used to play CD.

SECOND:if you think that the PD or the APL are a better option-sound than the Puccini+Uclock , the second question can be: As I own the Puccini with the U-clock, and here Europe, is practically imposible to hear the PD and very difficult the APL, do you think that the option of to buy one Scarlatti DAC, and use the Puccini as transport, can be better than the APL or the PD. Thanks.
newly
dob
577 posts
 
Questions to Jonathan Tinn:

Great front end. My most sincere congratulations. Let me exploit your presense in this forum.

Dud you ever considered (GOOD) tube output stage?
Will you consider it?

When your USB input will start to accept 176/24 and 192/24 data streaming from musical server?

Can you share with us what are you "cooking" now in your magic kitchen?

Many thanks
Rafael
jtinn
1,124 posts
 
Hi Rafael,

Thanks for the kind words. While I have always been a lover of tubes, I would say that one of the worst places to have them is in a DAC. A properly done solid state analog output stage can sound much better than a tube DAC. There is too much distortion and noise produced by tubes. Really I would not even focus on tubes versus solid state here. There are much more critical things going on like the conversion itself.

Currently USB is not ideal nor is it that important for use with a music server. Our unit accepts anything up to 24/192 through either AES or SPDIF. We have many customers that are very satisfied using USB to SPDIF converters in order to achieve 192kHz if they cannot use AES or SPDIF sound cards.

Right now we are extremely back ordered and focusing on filling orders. When there is something to announce, I will let you know.

Best Regards,

Jonathan Tinn
Playback Designs
carlos269
75 posts
 
Jonathan,
This is a very interesting comment: "There is too much distortion and noise produced by tubes." considering that the second and third order harmonic distortion that John Atkinson measured during his measurements for the Stereophile review of the Playback Design unit appears to be a deliberate attempt to add and emulate an exciter/enhancement tube-like distortion, in firmware. Would you please comment on this observation?
dob
577 posts
 
"There is too much distortion and noise produced by tubes."

Thank you Carlos for your astute observation. Let me also to add something.

Noise: I have new Joule-Electra preamp which got Harry Pearson's 2010 HP Editor Choice Award. OK, when I place my ear next to my speakers I hear...nothing, nada, ziltch. Total silence as in SILENCE. (The measured noise was of about 50 uV).

Distortions: The best BAT, CAT, Joule-Electra preamps have measured distortions (THD) less of 0.01%. Not much!!!!!!

All The Best

Rafael
aplhifi
515 posts
 
The long outdated (3-4 years old) NWO-2.5 featured 20 per channel AKM DACs and differential/balanced tube output stage with 6H30 tubes and Lundahl transformers (no negative feedback). Some measurements below.

Here is a graph with 1KHz at 0dB

Second harmonic at 0.003%, third at 0.001%, noise is at below -120dB or 0.0001% above 60Hz. You can see some 60Hz interference picked-up by the output transformers, but at -100dB or 0.001% it is something you cannot hear.

Another graph with 1KHz sine this time at -90.31db showing the resolution at this extremely low level.

All of the above measurements made with CD (44.1KHz/16bit).

Hope this helps!

Best,
Alex Peychev
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