Are there digital front ends with the body...

Mrtennis, for me, best is a live performance, preferably unamplified. I have this favorite local jazz trio playing in a nice restaurant for Sunday brunch. It is very noisy on Sundays but I went there on a week day and recorded the piano player live. My brother knows how to play acoustic guitar so I recorded him too. I did this so I can recreate the live performance as close as I can with my audio system. If you can have a natural and realistic reproduction of a piano, guitar and violin, with all details, resolution and natural decay, then your system is indeed “the best”.

In order to properly evaluate my digital players, I have designed and built the rest of my audio system. It is not for sale, it is for a reference.

Regards,
Alex

Tvad, you are absolutely correct. This is why I am always recording my vinyl to CD and DVD-A and A-B in real time with my digital. According to the ears of local audiophiles on a recent test, the digital sounded preferable to my vinyl. We used the direct-to-disc Bassface Swing Trio "Plays Gershwin" and its SACD copy. And the 45rpm Patricia Barber "Nightclub" on Mo-Fi and its SACD copy.

Regards,
Alex

I have a Forsell Transport hooked to an EAD 7000 DAC, the upgrade bug bit me recently, so I tested a bunch of DACs on my system, none were even close, Chord (closer), DCS (good detail,annoying hiss), AN (lower model), Accuphase (nice tone, missing bass), etc.... Of course I have my system highly tuned for this DAC (my own horn speakers and passive attenuator) so I guess that had something to do with it...
Anyway this setup kills my mediocre Analog rig.

My system have tremendous body. There are solid images in the air, drums that kick you in the chest, the whole deal. I am currently using a Mac-mini as a server and running it to a Wavelength Crimson USB DAC. OTOH, it took a lot of work, including changing out my (very good ) preamp.
I'm sure that more improvement is possible, since it always is, but I belive that I'm hitting the "few per cent for many dollars" part of the slope.

David

I've got a Wadia 830 with mods from Steve Huntley at Great Northern Sound that has amazing body and depth of image when the recording calls for it... I believe this is, at least in part, what the GNSC mods enabled on this player and, based on knowledge of other GNSC modded equipment and discussions with other owners, I'd have to say it is a strong expertise of Steve's.

Do a little searching here and on AudioAsylum for GNSC...