OP,
The ARC CD9se is a spectacularly good DAC. I recently had my audio guy drop off a Berkeley Alpha 3 DAC for me to compare with my ARC CD9se. I was able to balance the loudness and switch between them. I had it for a couple weeks. The difference was microscopic... with the ARC sounding ever so slightly better (ARC ever so slightly warmer in the midrange and bass.... more listenable, the Berkeley a tiny bit more detailed). The Berkeley is a $22K DAC know to be one of the best currently on the market. Obviously I was comparing music streams. I have 2,000 CDs but can’t think of a reason to play them. They are more inconvenient and frequently of lower resolution than what I get through streaming. So even if I own the CD, I will stream it. .
For the price of one CD per month you get access to a nearly infinite ♾ amount of music through Qobuz or Tidal, much of it are higher resolution than red book. So, the time to switch has come. I dabbled for years and now that I own a good streamer there is no going back.
The ARC CD9se is a spectacularly good DAC. I recently had my audio guy drop off a Berkeley Alpha 3 DAC for me to compare with my ARC CD9se. I was able to balance the loudness and switch between them. I had it for a couple weeks. The difference was microscopic... with the ARC sounding ever so slightly better (ARC ever so slightly warmer in the midrange and bass.... more listenable, the Berkeley a tiny bit more detailed). The Berkeley is a $22K DAC know to be one of the best currently on the market. Obviously I was comparing music streams. I have 2,000 CDs but can’t think of a reason to play them. They are more inconvenient and frequently of lower resolution than what I get through streaming. So even if I own the CD, I will stream it. .
For the price of one CD per month you get access to a nearly infinite ♾ amount of music through Qobuz or Tidal, much of it are higher resolution than red book. So, the time to switch has come. I dabbled for years and now that I own a good streamer there is no going back.