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Worlds best DAC

Went to CES this year to work on my transition to high Rez digital. I've heard many of the highly regarded players in my room or in others systems in the past. I'm actually very happy with my current cd based sound. As I listened to various DACS playing CD then high Rez, I was not bowled over. High rez was better, but only slightly so. The best (and most different) sound I heard happened to have one similarity. They were 2 non oversampling DACS with tube analog stages(Zanden and Ypsilon). These were without question the most natural sounding digital systems I heard at the show. They made CDsound miles ahead of high Rez. What gives?

PS: I understand the limitations of show auditions.
bflowers
edorr
714 posts
 
The new PS Audio perfectwave DAC performs best in non- upsampling ("native") mode. The new MKII upgrade has some innovative circuitry on a new digital processing board, involving changes in the powersupplies, and replacement of CMOS switching for the gates and clocking with analog switches. It also implements new jitter reducing circuitry called NativeX. I will get my upgrade tomorrow, but the first reviews are extremely positive. Wonder how the MKII ($4,000 MSRP) would stack up against the mega bucks units mentioned here.
fiddler
581 posts
 
I have about 275 hours on the Perfect Wave DAC MKII upgrade. Don't know if it's the best in the world or not, but I suspect it can compete with anything out there on equal footing. I have never, ever heard digital this good anywhere.
mrtennis
3,295 posts
 
the advantage of a tubed dac is the ability to alter the sound by changing the tube. sometimes one prefers more or less resolution, a warm sound, or other presentation. having a tube , especially in the gain stage has its benefits.
bflowers OP
80 posts
 
Arnie,

I was in the room with that dac while a friend was listening to something else by that distributor. I thought it was on static display. I wasn't aware that it was a contender. It looked nice as I recall. Do you know the price?
babybear's avatar
babybear
106 posts
 
It was in the Musical Artisans room with Magico Q3 speakers and they were using Luxman mono block amps (not sure of the model) with all Argento Flow Master Reference cabling. They are working on an amplifier and that was in the room on static display.

It is definitely a contender as some of the best digital playback around (easily the best that I have ever heard). Its hard to know the exact price as the C1 dac/preamp has multiple options that you can choose - for example the async USB board is an option, as is the Ethernet board. I spoke to the founder of the company, Florian Cossey, while I was there and they are also working on an analog input board that he felt would be available sometime around June of this year. I think the base price of the C1 dac/preamp is in the $30K range. When I listened to it in my room, it sounded best when the C1 unit was used as both a Dac and preamp (it has both RCA and XLR analog outputs). It is also built like a tank - the C1 unit itself weighed around 70 pounds.

Arnie
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