Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Well this guy (Mike) was a Lampi doubter till he heard one and now straight away bought a Golden Gate. If you search the site you will see we had rollicking aruguments beforehand.

http://audioshark.org/lampizator-186/lampizator-big-7-review-7213.html

His latest GG Dac feedback (only 2 weeks old - and we all know those Mundorf caps take 4-5 months to break in) is here:
http://audioshark.org/lampizator-186/lampizator-golden-gate-7223-page16.html#post128035

"I know audio memory is very fickle, but I would venture a guess that with this tube combo and the Aurender N100H providing the sweet music, the Lampi PCM now is on par with the best I've heard....and you already know about the DSD....it sounds like nothing else digital, period."

Yes, Mike has heard the Berkeley Ref in his system (outstanding PCM Dac) as his pal lent him his for a few days and he has heard plentyin his system, as Mike is an unapologetic gear swapper.

So, yes, there is a lot of great gear out there, but I am telling you guys Lampi is waaaay up there.

Finally, I am getting jaw dropping feedback of the great sound by the Monaco "Sound Galleries" room in Munich, where they used a Lampi Big7 with Regen device with Uptone LPSU, a Windows10 CAPs Server (slightly OS optimised with i7 processor and top motherboard/battery powered SSDs) running HQ Playing upsampling all to DSD128, Corning Optical USB cable, Audiopax amps (3 pentodes in SE triode operation) and Avantegarde Duo speakers. They ran it in normal and Realtime priority modes and blew people away with the switch. Lots of engineers need to go scambling back to the drawing board. Details at the computeraudiophile forum and perhaps some writeup to come from Audiostream.

thanks Wisnon. I heard the GG/Antipodes room and it did sound wonderful. I'll look for the GG at the Newport show. Especially with the new DHT quad balanced option.

The new MSB V DAC is out now as well and looks to be a statement contender as well.

With my wonderful little ODSE I feel no pressure to upgrade. But it's always fun to look.

Mike Lavorgna did a great write up on the Sound Galleries room:

http://www.audiostream.com/content/lampizator-hq-player-audiopax-avante-garde-digital-done-right

CTsooner - to answer a question you asked in another thread in January that I just saw, no. I am not looking at the Stella Utopia any more. I think it would be my dream speaker, but it's just too big for my small to medium sized room. As I continue to treat, set up and tweak my room I realize that it is small for a truly ideal Statement level system, sigh. The Evolution MM3's are equally sensational but I just couldn't find the perfect spot for them in my room that I was happy with. I did get a 6'x6'x6' equilateral triangle settled sort of in the middle of the room to sound best. But it was nearfield and sounded more like I was wearing the speakers then listening to them. Just too big for my room. It taught me that I really need to respect my rooms size constraints to find the best for my room.

I'm going to post a brief speaker opinion on my virtual system thread.

Matt, just sent you a message.