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Playback Designs MPD3 Audition

Ill keep this short and sweet....anyone else hearing you're or owning this dac your opinions would be appreciated. The other trio of Dacs I had in the house were not in the same league. Albeit the were several price points cheaper...I guess amgonna have to part with money..v
zugisland
doggiehowser
672 posts
 
@APLHifi

I think there's a difference from the traditional warm and wooly tube sound and the modern tube design like what you get from Audio Research or Conrad Johnson.
zugisland OP
42 posts
 
iVe audtioned a bunch of stuff in the PBD mpd3 price range and to my ear room and system it was by far the sonic winner. It went up against the Weiss 202 , Esoteric k-03 , the new Audio Research Dac Pre, the Peachtress Grandpre and several lower price items. I did want to hear the Skylla from Ayon but was unable to do so. Also you say that you listened to the PBD in normal 44k mode and then tried it upsampled which makes me question the whole scenario as the MPD does not have a way to change the upsampled everything it is fed is auto upsampled to DSD. UNless you meant you fed it unsampled data and then upsampled they a software program first before it was fed to MPD3. In anyevent not sure If i have bought the greatest Dac in the world but I do think I have a very fine piece of audio jewelry that is better then most at its price point and will hold value and use well due to its future proof scorecard of 384 and dsd capable..
bhobba's avatar
bhobba
303 posts
 
Hi Zugisland

Yes indeed the MPD 3 does internal up-sampling and when I said I was up-sampling it I meant the software player (in this case Audirvana) was doing the up-sampling. Why would it sound different than its internal up-sampling? - different up-sampling algorithms perhaps and I have also read jitter is improved if you feed a DAC at a higher sampling rate. Exactly why it sounds better I don't think anyone knows for sure but sound better it does - it has been verified by quite a few people that heard it.

Like I said when reading these comparisons you will find different results depending on preferences and system synergies - all such things mean is if a DAC that comes out on top it might be worthwhile seeking it out and listening to it. But of course auditioning has to stop somewhere and if you feel you have done enough then by all means stop your search and get the DAC you like best.

Thanks
Bill
jtinn
1,124 posts
 
I am trying to stay out of this discussion as much as possible as opinions are very personal.

However, the mistake is to let anything other than a good DAC do the upsampling. No computer software program can do as good a job as a good DAC.

Bill, you might want to try it again having our DAC handle every part of the conversion.

Jonathan Tinn
Playback Designs
info@playbackdesigns.com
doggiehowser
672 posts
 
Jon

I think that some software like JPlay can do an offline conversion that's supposed to be very good. It's not done in real time however and the resulting file is pretty large but some have reported better results with such software conversion.

This was covered in Absolute Sound magazine from a couple of issues back.
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