Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Hi Matt, believe it or not, I had completely forgotten that Muzik in your room were overloading the bass... Perhaps I'm starting to misfold proteins in the brain *grins!*

Regardless of speakers brand and model, both Kevin Wolff of Vienna Acoustics North America (VANA) and Rod Tomson of Soundings in Denver assert that almost any room can achieve excellent sound if speakers placement is performed by a professional with the VA/Sumiko method.... Variously called Master, Masterset, or Master Set. The process is unfortunately not documented particularly well in the wild, but is sold as a service by some Sumiko and VA dealers like Soundings... It certainly worked fantastically in my own loft to eliminate some residual shoutiness and mid lower bass overload... On the other hand, my loft is essentially 16 x 30 ft or so, and is far from approximating a square. Furthermore, the great success in my loft cannot imply that a generalization is a safe bet.

On a different track, is it possible that your now more reflecting floor might be a contributing factor to the Dynaudio shoutiness?

G.

I do agree with Paul that your source needs to be upgraded given the caliber of your system, but its not the source of the current problem. Guido's suggestion is a good one: put a dense piece of carpeting at the first reflection point on the floor. I am not sure that's the fix either, but time will tell...

Another potential issue is the the Esotar tweeter is notorious for being uber revealing and pointy under the wrong conditions....

IME, the more resolute the speakers are, the more flaws are revealed.

Taking your complaint, it goes along with my experience with my own speakers (the Joseph's you didn't care for at the store). When music went from a soft to loud sound, or a hot vocal, the speakers poured it all out and revealed I had an issue. That issue was SHOUT.. So in my case, it was that the speakers did not compress under the stress, they allowed the system to tell the truth. I also thought the speakers were to blame, when in fact, they were telling me something needed attention.

I went to the Totaldac Server, and all my problems were solved. I actually got more dynamic range now, that maintains composure instead of farting out, because the server does not fall on its @$$ when the demand is there, like my hotrod Mac Mini did. My system never shouts at me now.

Not saying this is absolute and what you are experiencing, but this did fix my issue.

Hope you get there. Sounds like the Dyn's are everything else you want.

Matt, good luck with the DX. I have been a very happy owner of DS Reference for over an year and it is a great product. One important point, the server shall be on for at least 40 hours before it reaches optimum performance. In fact, Mark Jenkins recommends to keep it on all the time.