New owner of used Cary 306 SACD

OK here goes.

I have experimented with various things under the CDP. Now have it sitting on a granite slab with Finite Elemente Ceraballs underneath. It makes a slight difference but not enough for me to bother doing it again.

The player has a true balanced audio output. Four DAC's per balanced output (two for PCM, two for DSD). This is extravagant and unusual, and you should take advantage of the balanced output. The difference is huge, much bigger than any other tweak.

Cover the window with a CD cover when you are spinning a disc. This improves resolution and soundstage. This is free and yields an improvement in my system.

The player also has switchable upsampling modes on PCM, from 44.1kHz to 768kHz. There is a difference between 44.1kHz and 512kHz, but minimal difference between 512 and 768. I leave mine on 768kHz.

Have fun with your player. I love mine :)

Watch your cables - power and IC. You have the type of system where you can get good benefit from proper matching. You should be able to hear differences easily enough. If you don't care for the sound madly, then try one or two different power cords and IC cables as it will tweak the sound nicely. Go with very high quality on the cdp to amp connection. This will influence the result more than any tweak.

I had a friend selling his 306 and could get it for a great price. I wanted it bad. Doing an A/B comparison with my Trivista SACD made me pass on it. It has even more output at a lower impedance than my Trivista which is nice in my passive setup. Listening tests quickly confirmed one player better than the other. While SACD playback was similar on the two the Trivista smoked it on redbook. I didn't want that to happen! Image and soundstage were similar, bass a little more or better on the Cary but the mids and HF were so much better on the Tri. The Cary had a digital edge and harshness. Bummer! I wanted that player. I want to hear a 306 Pro as I know when my Tri transport goes it becomes a very big DAC. There are no more transports or parts for it.

ET

Deliberate1, you will find aftermarket cables, including power cords an "ear-opening" experience! Some Impressions of cable sets I have reviewed (you can find extensive descriptions of them on Dagogo.com) Note that this is a summary of working with a suite of one or two models of each of these brands, not entire line. However, the cables I have tested (both privately and with Dagogo.com) which I have worked with successively higher models of cable have been consistent with the manufacturer's house sound.

Jena Labs Jazz and Java - laid back, slightly smaller sound stage; not "in your face" (This was confirmed by Jena Whitewolf Crock stating that they voice the cables to their ideal of the Jazz club).

Tara Labs RSC Air Series - clean and neutral, but having what to my ears is a slightly compressed frequency range. i.e. slightly rolled off at far ends of treble and bass. Might be a consideration for those with single driver, high efficiency speakers.

Magnan Signature and Reference : Surprising wire; extremely forgiving of solid state electronics. Almost a tube-like sound from a cable. Still, very detailed.

MIT AVt MA and Z Stabilizer: "Power-cables" as in fiercely dynamic, makes music sound more like a close mic recording. Favors immediacy of the note from the instrument vs. the extension of soundstage. Do not overdo it with daisy-chained network (passive electronics) units in the cables & power conditioners or else clarity will suffer.

Wire World Equinox 5 Squared: Extremely well balanced in terms of tonality, frequency extension, clarity, etc. A high degree of precision and finesse. Due to their geometry they operate as a passive filter, negating the need for power conditioning. I agree that they sound much better without additional power conditioning.

(To brand loyalists: I'm not interested in debating/arguing my findings of these cables. My opinion is set based on months of usage with different systems. I'm expressing characteristics of these exact sets of cables, not giving them a yea/nay vote; I could put any of them into a high end rig achieving a particular goal and achieve excellent results.)