Worlds best DAC

Arnie,

I was in the room with that dac while a friend was listening to something else by that distributor. I thought it was on static display. I wasn't aware that it was a contender. It looked nice as I recall. Do you know the price?

It was in the Musical Artisans room with Magico Q3 speakers and they were using Luxman mono block amps (not sure of the model) with all Argento Flow Master Reference cabling. They are working on an amplifier and that was in the room on static display.

It is definitely a contender as some of the best digital playback around (easily the best that I have ever heard). Its hard to know the exact price as the C1 dac/preamp has multiple options that you can choose - for example the async USB board is an option, as is the Ethernet board. I spoke to the founder of the company, Florian Cossey, while I was there and they are also working on an analog input board that he felt would be available sometime around June of this year. I think the base price of the C1 dac/preamp is in the $30K range. When I listened to it in my room, it sounded best when the C1 unit was used as both a Dac and preamp (it has both RCA and XLR analog outputs). It is also built like a tank - the C1 unit itself weighed around 70 pounds.

Arnie

Glad to see that the price has been kept low so that we may all enjoy it. Not!

Hi Arnie/Babybear,

Any updates on the CH Precision? I own the Zanden Signature DAC and am likely to keep it for some time to come having elected to pass on a trade-in option for Wadia S7, DCS Scarlatti and various ARC equipment. However, I came across the STahl-Tek Vekian and was intrigued/tempted.

I then read about CH Precision...first from you!. And then i saw this morning that a superb SOTA system (Rockport Arrakis 2 speakers, 2 sets of Gryphon Mephisto monos, 6 SOTA turntables, Transp Ref Opus MM2 cabling everywhere, dedicated room, etc, etc)...just got a CH Precision digital system so now I am seriously interested to know more...since i like the system this person has, having gotten to know Gryphon electronics, Transp Audio cabling and Rockport speakers. Thanks for any update!!!

Hi Lloyd,

I would say this about the CH Precision. I have had the opportunity to listen to it - meaning both the D1 CD/SACD transport and the C1 DAC/Preamp in my system (this was back at the end of November 2011). If you have a digital only system such that you could use the C1 DAC not only as a DAC but also utilizing the preamp section, then it is amazing sounding digital. At the time it was the best that I had heard (which includes the Esoteric P03/D03/G0s combo that I owned at the time, the EMM XDS1, and the full DCS Scarlatti stack.) However, if you have an analog front end and therefore would want to continue to use whatever preamp you are using and would only use the C1 DAC as a DAC feeding your preamp, then while still very good digital, the CH Precision combo will drop back much closer to the other units above based on what I heard - perhaps still a little better in some ways, but its magic is clearly when used without an additional preamp in the chain. Also, the build quality is superb - better even than the Esoteric.

I know that CH Precision was working on an analog input board for the C1. I don't know if it is available yet, but the downside to me was that they were planning to take the signal from the analog input and then convert it to 24/192 digital and process it as a digital signal which is not something that I wanted to do with my analog front end.

Let me know if you have other questions. Thanks
Arnie