Mark Levinson No. 36 DAC & High Resolution Files

The three midfi DAC's i've tried in my home thanks to some club members were , Esoteric D-03 , Boulder 1012 and ARC DAC8 . All three were excellent in one way or another , After much listening , and wine we felt the ARC suited my system and me a bit better than the others but none had the natural warm and uncompressed ease of the older Levinson , I was surprised and entertained . I didn't say " like analog " did I ?
You may want to disregard my post , I'm fairly biased .

This is timely for me and any thoughts appreciated.

I have a 360 DAC . I was feeding it with a genesis digital lens fed by a crap sylvania cd/dvd and just bought a close-out integra 500$ cd/dvd for 200$ BUT --although the integra provides better detail and sound stage it is still a bit harsh sounding.

I'm going to try switching to computers with the halide bridge, because I don't feel like buying an expensive transport.

My question -- just to be clear because this is new to me -- if I input 24/96 files (where do I get them?...download from the internet I guess), then will the 360 dac automatically handle them or do I have to "do" something or set some setting.

Tmsorosk,

All the DACs you mention are not mid fi to me - they sound pretty high end.

I'm quite surprised they didn't perform as warm as the ML 360 after all they are not DAC's people use for computer audio alone and would fit into any respectable full on hi fi rig.

05-20-11: Sgr
You might look into PS Audios Perfect Wave DAC it will decode any high rez files, and I replaced my Levinson 30.6 DAC with it and never looked back.

I replaced my No. 36 with The PS Audio Perfect wav dac and trans. I feel the same way as Sgr...

You also need to factor in the high cost of Levinson repair. Probably around $1200.00 will be charged to your card just for them to look at it and everything needs repaired at some point. You can put that repair $s into a newer piece of equipment. I did like the smooth analog sound of the Levinson and of course the build quality was second to none. But that has changed new Levinson digital is reportedly Oppo in disguise.