Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Hi Mat, at the cost of being deemed uncooth and a country bumpkin, analog is what I abandoned in 1984... And never felt the need to look back since.

As for "analog sound" done well, I have a hard time distinguishing it from "digital sound" done well... I have heard fab analog sound and fab digital sound... as much as Crappy digital sound and equally crappy analog rigs.

Yes, I have been equally enchanted/mesmerized down to my soul by complexity, and textured richness of analog front ends as much as by the same in digital front ends. "The Analog vs digital" discussion is covering in my opinion a false problem. Or at least, it is a matter that has more to do with the social sciences than engineering.

G

+1 Guidocorona thoughts regarding digital and analog.

I agree. But Mike L. was very specific to use the term analogue as a descriptor. I guess we all have our own interpretation of what that implies. But you are 100% correct Guido. Same as tube vs. solid state. As they get better they become more and more like each other.

Guidocorona, I have been involved with a pro guy in Canada for some years now and have had success with a heavily modified Mac Mini using JRiver MC 21 for a digital sound that easily surpasses what I ever heard on a cd player. I was playing double DSD files from SACDs and many cds ripped to my hard drives. Initially, he had made the Mac Mini think it was just iTunes playing but then Apple made the Mac Mini into a device that could run Windows 8. The later version moved to running the Mac running Widow 7.

Now he is seeking to reduce the latency of the computer, which entails abandoning much of the conveniency of iTunes or typical JRiver MCs organization. I have or had a new music server and managed to hear one cut before losing control of it. That cut was so outstanding and only rivaled by a quad DSD recording I heard at the RMAF that I am hoping to get the server back soon with some conveniences added. Both the one cut that I heard on this server and what I heard in the German Physics room quad DSD cut, were different than analog sources, but clearly their equal. Transient attacks were quite striking and bass control, realism, and extension were awesome.

I think that quad DSD is the wave of the future and that 44.1 and cds will be gone soon be gone. I really hope that my friend can get me a low latency music server with some ease of use. I'm also hoping that SONY makes their quad DSDs available in that format.

Matt, "analog" means different things for different people... For me it is only an engineering term without any positive correlation to what I seek to hear... Far too many times I have been in "analog" suites at RMAF filled with ecstatic gents listening to sound that ranged from turgid, to grating, to soporific, and yes on occasion... to mesmerizing... Just the same as in suites where the source was a digital one.

Hence, I do not call analog a sound that I inherently enjoy a priori... I call my goal sound harmonically complex, linear, and mesmerizing... But "analog" per se is not for me associated with dopamine or oxytocin rush flow.

Hi Norm, I have no doubts that digital technology continues to make strides in a variety of different and equally valid directions, and so most likely does analog reproduction.

G.