Higher End DACs

@ufguy73 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with your McIntosh system, you must have enjoyed it for some time now not only do you have people suggesting $35,000 streaming dacs and $5000 reclockers but saying you need to sell off what you have and start over. Auralic, Lumin, Innous, Aurrender as well as other streamers in the $7K- $12K range will give you great sound. Ones cheaper than those will as well. I have no doubt an uber expensive  streamer dac will provide you with a great listening experience but once the noise, jitter, distortion is below human hearing and a $2200 Benchmark DAC3 will do that the rest is eye candy and hyperbole. I'll  get flack for saying all this but try something like an Auralic Vega G2 for $6500, forget what they cost and just listen to streamers in that range against the others costing 4 times as much as then ask yourself are they even 5 % better? 

All those who chimed in saying ‘non-MQA support would be a deal breaker’.....while I respect their opinion, I would not discard any DAC/Streamer choices solely based on this feature. With ‘right’ components, Tidal HiFi and Qobuz Hi-Res files upto 24bit/196kHz sounds pretty amazing.

To my ears, MQA files sound slightly unnatural and bit ‘hot’ in upper frequency range. And we have yet to see universal support from the manufacturer of DA converters.

I can’t imagine anyone turning down T+A SDV3100 HV or EMM Labs DA2 just because they don’t support MQA 😊

djones51 has sound advice. that extra 5-10%can come at a very high cost. fwiw there is one thing that i feel strongly about. auditioning in another room with a different system won’t tell you very much about how something will sound in your home. never forget that you’re also listening to the room. 

qobuz is awesome btw and easy to use. i’ve had tidal and thought it not so good after trying qobuz. all audiophiles should at least give it trial. some of the hi rez titles leave little to be desired. i never got on with mqa. ymmv

Okay, guys lets get this into perspective, most of you do not have a store full of dacs we do!

The unfortunate point of all of this is there is good, there is better and there is the best of these kinds of products.

In this case ingnorance is bliss, if you care about spending less money.

We have the Lumin D2, the T2, the X1 which do represent the good, the better the best You can clearly hear the improvement as you go up the scale.

We are doing this morning a comparision the X1 vs the T+A SDV 3100 and again the sound takes a dramatic improvement in realisim, soundstage size and width, the sound becomes more real and much more musical. It is worth the price, yes if you can afford it and have the system to show you the difference.

As per the OP the T+A piece represents a fascinating opportunity to get a world class preamp that may dramatically improve the overall system’s sound as well as if he prefers the clearner sound of the T+A as a preamp then he can recoup some of his investment by selling the Mcintosh preamp.

When designing a system you can go with what "fits" which can mean anything or you can buy the best that you can.

If you remember the Linn concept which is the sound starts at the source the better the source the better the sound you can create.

Also a digital front end of this calibre means that the OP can continue to grow into this system by eventually moving into even better electronics if he prefers over the Mcintosh amplifiers, which would again he could continue to evolve his sound.

A top of the line front end would not be wasted in the context of the OP’s system, wether he choose DCS, MSB or T+A all of these top of the line front ends will help improve his system more so than a much cheaper front end.

Again we are writing this while doing exactly that same comparison on a $20k amp, a $32k pair of speakers, and just comparing two front ends, a very very good one ,the Lumin and one of the best in the world, the T+A, in the context of our system you can clearly hear the superiority of the better setup and yes it is worth it, however, without having the Lumin, the Formula and the other less expensive digital front ends to compare with you would be happy with one of those if you never experienced the next level you can accheive with a stelar dac such as the T+A.

Try the same comparison with a good car such as a entry level Mustang and the new Corvette does the extra $20-30k make you happier 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ, Lumin, Aqua, T+A, dealers