Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

welcome back buddy.  Glad that it was a great trip.  Elizebeth, I too have heard that marantz.  I think most equate it with their mass market stuff.  Most have not heard their reference gear which is very nice sounding.  I like warm and not 'hot' gear.  I don't put your DAC into either category.  I think it's a fairly neutral sound with a bit of dynamics.  If anything, the soundstage was a bit more intimate than say the Empirical ODSE/SE that I owned.  Steve's gear threw huge stages.  The Marantz seemed to me to be a nice piece.

Next to the Total Dac, this was another jaw dropping moment that really impressed when converting pcm Redbook either 16/44 or 24/96.

http://www.aquahifi.com/la_scala.html

Cheers George

@georgehifi 

Funny you mentioned these two, we had exactly this shoot out for a whole day on a reviewers system at his place in the beautiful Blue Mtns on his Wilson Alexia MkII, Gryphon Antillion Evo Signature my passive pre. We also went direct, with the same results.
The Total dac was far better than the Bricasti in every area, even the owner of the Bricasti SE conceded, and is going to sell it to go to R2R.

Don’t get me wrong the Bricasti was lovely and sweet and smooth, but not exciting when compared, it had no jump factor like the Total, that snapped your head back in disbelief with some of the dynamics, and yet it still stayed sweet and smooth when needed.
You could hear deeper into the music because of this expanse from quiet to loud. And it gave all this to you not from the speaker but all around it with an image and depth that washed over you instead of directed from the each of the drivers of the speakers, as if the speakers weren't there in the room.

Cheers George

We had 5 techs, 3 non techs at our meeting and were all insistent on perfect level matching.
All levels were matched overhaul not by spl by ear or meter but by the voltage down to the mV fed into the speakers at differing sine waves with a tech cd to get the levels absolutely identical to the mV
And the Total Dac 7 with larger optional off board power supply, was by far the better, with PCM Redbook replay.

Cheers George

Did you really only use a passive preamp or direct to DAC for this DAC comparison?

This would give the Total DAC a big advantage, as its output is 6.4 Vrms max, compared to the Briscasti's 2 Vrms.

I just replaced what could best be described as a “vintage”  Musical Fidelity A3.5 CD player with an Oppo 85 after reading many, many positive opinions on Oppo in general.  I had previously perceived Oppo as “ mass market “ stuff, and while this is a universal disc player with outstanding reviews on its blue ray capabilities, it was lauded for its cd audio. 

And deservedly so.  The Oppo made virtually all of my redbook discs remarkably better in every respect.  The only discs it didn’t improve sonically were those that were badly recorded - which no player can manage.  Unfair though my comparison may be - the MF A3.5 is significantly older - the Oppo absolutely was an immediate improvement.  

And for $500 used.  One of the best dollar/value additions to my stuff in recent times.  Woohoo.  

Modwright KWI-200 Integrated
Marantz TT-15 Turntable
Sony HapZ1ES
Maggie 1.7i and Vandersteen 3A Signature
(Still trying to decide between these - tough!)

headphonedreams - I am also in the side that thinks that all common architectures (R2R, DS, FPGA) can work when implemented with care....

Hi everyone. I’m pretty good at using google. That said, may I ask the opinions of the folks on this thread for a very brief (sentence or two) explanation as to the advantages and/or disadvantages of "FPGA" in comparison to the other two architectures. Thank you.