Buy a DAC or buy an SACD player?

DAC! MSB link dac 3 w/HDCD option. SACD may sound fantastic but most of their players do not do CD's well.

I also have a startos. I am using a CAL Alpha DAC with 1963 GE Long Plate Tubes. I love my DAC, it has let me know there is more to CD's than you've previously heard. As far as SACD, there is not a whole lot of titles out there. The SACD format is amazing, I've heard it on a Sony 9000 DVD/SACD player. It sounds great for SACD, but I feel your current CD selection will benefit from a DAC. Wait a year or two till they have a combo SACD/DVDA player. There are a lot of reasonable DAC's out there, but a Tube DAC will let you change the sound.

Regards

MSB Platinum DAC (around $3000) and another $600 to mod your CD player with MSB 192khz interface. In my book, SACD goin' no where (I own an SACD player -can't get decent soft stuff).

MSB Link DAC is fine. Forget the HDCD chip and spend that money by sending it to Stan Warren in Oregon for modification. Search his name to get more information.

I'll try to even out the count here. So far, it looks like MSB is winning : )

Honestly though, i would go for a REASONABLY priced DAC at this point in time. With that in mind, i prefer the CAL Alpha or Sigma over the MSB's. While it is a matter of personal taste / system synergy, i really don't think that there is much competition between the two. Keep in mind that i'm talking about STOCK unmodified units and not "hand tweaked" units.

If you wanted to get into the expense of buying a mass produced unit and then tweaking it, why not just start with a unit that was "tweaked" from the ground up like an EVS Millennium II ??? It offers all of the resolution of a SS DAC with the liquidity and smoothness of tubes. On top of this, it upsamples and has the switch selectable option of phase reversal.

Most of the other DAC's at this price point are using chips that cost less than $5 apiece ( including the MSB ) whereas the ones that Ric uses cost appr $25 each. Quite honestly, Ric has well over $500 in raw parts in this unit, so i have NO idea how he can cover all of the labor involved in building these units one by one AND offer a money back guarantee. At $1050 with a 30 day trial period, i can't see anything else coming close for redbook. In a direct comparison, it blew my Alpha clean out of the water..... Sean
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