Best Digital Source That Money Can Buy?

Jb0194 said"

"I agree with Newly" and
"I needn't be held to some comparative standard, yours or any others', to express an opinion. "

Newly said:
"Without any doubt the best today available digital front is dCS Scarlatti, forget Payback designs, EMM labs, Zanden and others toys,"

Jb0194 is entitled to all the baseless claims he desires to make. I just think that he shouldn't be surprised if someone calls him on them.

Claiming that the Scarlatti is better than the Playback Designs, Emm and Zanden without actually comparing is not an "opinion", it's a bold faced (fill in the blank).

Dave

hi mikelavigne:

why did your friend prefer the playback designs, given the amr's flexibility for changes in tubes and sampling rate ?

that is, in what respect did he find the playback designs a superior unit ?

Mr. Tennis, rather than post hearsay, i'll e-mail you his e-mail address and you can ask him directly. we did not discuss any tube rolling or different AMR set-up choices. he typically calls me on the phone and it may take awhile to find his e-mail address.

i will e-mail this to you later today.

Mrtennis, I haven't compared to the PD to the AMR, so I can't comment on that, but many of us would consider the "amr's flexibility for changes in tubes and sampling rate" to be negative. If changing a tube can improve the sound, then that implies a weakness in the designer's unit as distributed.

I think those two things (circuit design and sampling rate) are the designer's responsibility and would hope that I couldn't improve upon the designer's choices.

BTW, I never have figured out why people put tubes in DACs. Is there any technical advantage to doing this?

Dave

Will Playback Designs be at CES this year and if so what venue.