CDP / DAC Advice required

Hi Rich,

The place i tried Apogee and DAC3 is my local Bel canto showroom, but I'm not sure about their on-off and warm up. Our objective is actually to find something to kick my friend's Apogee out but we got conversed result.

The system contains:
Transprot: Bel Canto CD-2
Power Amp: Bel Canto 300
Speaker: T+A CRITERION - TS 350
I'm not sure about the Digital cable cuz the staff don't allow me to change it by myself, and I didn't bring other digital cable there(we brought just analog). English is not my primary langauge but I'll try to describe.

Both my friend and I agreed that Apogee sounds much wider and much more detail, well how much?... much enough to make one of Bel Canto staff ask me about the Apogee's price. Apogee can seperate each instrument into piece by piece which each individual detail. The biggest difference we noted was when we play Andrea Borcelli's. When played with apogee we feel like Andrea is standing and sing in front of a big orchestra band, each instruments were seperated. But with DAC3, we feel that now Andrea 2-3steps more forward from the stage, but singing in front of a speaker which playing his backing track not a live band. Stage is small and we can't identify each instrument.

Can you guide me something I missed with the DAC3? I actually hope much more from it and would like to back to try it again for the best result.

You speak very well, don't worry about it.

Certainly, I don't think you missed anything. If you and you're friend had the same observations, than either the Apogee is phenomenally better than I thought, or the Bel Canto DAC3 wasn't warmed up properly. The fact that this demo occurred at a dealer, I would think that I would have to give the dealer the benefit of the doubt, that he knows what he's doing, unless the DAC3 was recently sitting on a shelf unplugged, prior to your demo.

Although, the set-up that I had recommended, will definitely improve the sound for maximum results, it is not necessary to hear how good the DAC3 is.

I will say, however, that if the DAC3 wasn't warmed up for at least an absolute minimum of 2 days, then the test was totally flawed, and I would recommend that you re-demo it.

Rich

The Bryston BDA-1 is phenominal. With all the praise the BCD-1 has been getting, the BDA-1 is at least just as good, if not better.