Digital amp beat them all? Audio Physic Strada .

Well Dinos .... you question is answered. There will be much resistance due to the general hocus-pocus explanations of why digital must be bad "and so I won't even bother to audition" attitude.

For me I'd rather get a $1k integrated and pay off the house ... so it will have to get a lot cheaper. But I'm very interested in it. Audio Physic has a good reputation to lose, so I'm sure they've researched it.

I´ve heard the arguments before!There has to be ...because
..To be more specific: there is an audio society here in
Sweden called Ljudtekniska sällskapet "The society of sound technique". Their guru often has some splendid explanations
of why products have to sound in a certain way, even before
he seems to have listen to the products in question.
One member thanked him, because "before, I thought I heard
that SACD sounded better than CD, but after talking to
the (name of the guru),and after getting his technical explanations, I realised, that I was totally wrong!"
The question: are the Stradas overpriced or not, can not
be easely answered without a general discussion of the whole
audiomarket! To me, quality of components in an amp,the
built quality, the efforts and intellectual challanges that
are laid down in a certain product; these factors play a
great role.Please note, that digital amps can be realised
in different ways, and that the Stradas doesn´t use
the Tri-Path building blocks, used in several other digital
amps.
I´m not trusting magazines that much, but their findings
may or may not have significance to us, as consumers. That
is our own choice.
I´m not saying that the Strada monoblocks are splendid
products,because that I don´t know. Certainly they are not the end of the road, but I find them interesting enough.

Regards
Håkan

Seantaylor99, the Tact and Spectron web sites have rudimentary explanations of how thier specific gear works, as is usually the case there is more than one way to skin a cat. In the not too distant future your price point may be met on the used market. Like all new technology the first products tend to carry more of the R&D costs.

I hope all of you appreciated my reference to analog for the sarcastic rhetoric that it was. While it's true that I do in the end prefer digital to analog, I am not deaf to the charms of analog. I was just trying to reflect how ugly prejudice can be. Marakanetz, I'm not sure I'm following you. Why critcize digital for not being able to produce 8 Hz. I doubt many cartridges could stay in the groove at that frequency. I can't imagine many (any?) recordings having that information. I have to wonder how you can acurately play back vinyl with a passive pre-amp (I am under the impression that you use the Marchand?). I don't understand your reference to algebra. Are the zero's nothing or digits ($?)? Are you suggesting that digital will never add up to the totality of analog? You have obviously made the comparisons, and I have to respect your right to opinions, but I'm still confused by them.

My opinion is that one should buy with ones ears. That said I am very interested in a meaningful discussion of the pros and cons of technologies. I believe most of the real answers to the analog vs digital debate lie in the realm of real world engineering and manufacture, where theoretical performance is compromised by imperfect components. For example the aliasing filter, jitter and DAC linearity in CD players, and the mass, rigidity, and acoustic isolation in turntables.

But at the end of the day I wouldn't part with either my CD player or my turntable, or any of my LPs or CDs.