Is the EMM DAC6e or DCC2 /CDSD the best out there?


Is this the best digital front end ever?

What about

Reiymo CDP 777?
dCS gear?
Audio Aero Prestige?

Any other contenders?
iujona
Very intriguing findings MGottlieb, have you been using Purist Dominus PC on the X-01? Have you tried any other PCs on it, such as Shunyata Anaconda VX and Electraglide Epiphany and what were the perceivable differences?
As I installed X-01 on Oct 15th, My unit has now over 400 hours of redbook playtime on it in repeat mode and is still sweetening, while opening up audibly.
Even through its stock power chord, a ludicrous Audioquest Quartz RCA between it and my aging LS2B, yesterday, playing works by Gibbons performed by the Rose Consort, my jaw was seriously losing altitude: treble, alto, tenor, and bass viols, positif organ and cembalo were simply staggering.
If the hypothetical addition of DCS processors opened the stage any further, this would bleed through the walls into the yard next door, and my neighbours would accuse me undoubtedly of pernicious invasion of privacy.
Mgottlieb -> are you referring to the original dCS Verdi transport or the newer Verdi LaScala ?
Elberoth2--late 2004 vintage Verdi. DCS indicatd that a separate Verdi and Purcell DSD would marginally outperform the combo, though I'm not sure in what respect. Since I already had the Purcell, that was fine with me. Guido, nice to chat again. I'm not a PC guy; been through NBS, Dominus, a couple of Shunyatas, and I don't remember what else, and always felt that all they ever did was change the sound, not improve it. One somewhere in the system might seem to help, but a second was always too much of something. I'm sticking with my ten Absolute power cords--they do no harm. I don't blink at thousands of dollars for Dominus speaker cables and the same for a half dozen pair of balanced ICs, but can't justify significant PC bucks. Sure, I know a lot of people differ, but my ears hear what they hear. Maybe my Burmester line conditioner does the work some PCs do.
I agree with Mgottlieb. Having owned the earlier dCS combo and then the Verdi/Purcell/Elgar + , I found CD on my Forsell MK IV transport was substantially better sounding with the dCS gear than the Verdi. Of course, the Forsell is idiosyncratic as hell and no longer in production.
Elnerth 2: I noticed in a different thread u had not used the ST cable btwn the Meitner transport and DAC or DCC2. Huge, huge difference. Try it out.