Hi ours13
I managed to borrow a Puccini+USB clock, for a couple of days to compare to my then ARC CD5. The Puccini was better but it was marginal and I did not buy it.
I ended up with the playback MPS 5 second hand it is very good, the side by side improvement over the CD5 was obvious straight away - unfortunately it had some issues the seller managed to hide.
It is now fixed fixed and it does sound fantastic. It has a very natural sound, much more so than the dcs. I also had a very long demo over 2 days of the 3 box dcs Paganini. I was not able to compare it directly with the PBack. However on re-listening to the MPS 5 back at my home I much preferred the PB presentation of music. Although the dcs Pag sounded detailed it seemed to lack warmth and weight in the bottom end.
I think the dcs gear sounds a bit digital compared to the playback and I do not like all the extra, dac, clock & up-sample, devices you have to use with dcs. I much prefer a one box solution. The PB is much simpler to operate.
As I expect you know Andreas Koch worked with EMM labs before developing the MPS 5. There are similarities in the physical design of the 2 brands. I have never heard an EMM labs machine but I suspect the sound would be neater to the playback than the dcs sound.
I managed to borrow a Puccini+USB clock, for a couple of days to compare to my then ARC CD5. The Puccini was better but it was marginal and I did not buy it.
I ended up with the playback MPS 5 second hand it is very good, the side by side improvement over the CD5 was obvious straight away - unfortunately it had some issues the seller managed to hide.
It is now fixed fixed and it does sound fantastic. It has a very natural sound, much more so than the dcs. I also had a very long demo over 2 days of the 3 box dcs Paganini. I was not able to compare it directly with the PBack. However on re-listening to the MPS 5 back at my home I much preferred the PB presentation of music. Although the dcs Pag sounded detailed it seemed to lack warmth and weight in the bottom end.
I think the dcs gear sounds a bit digital compared to the playback and I do not like all the extra, dac, clock & up-sample, devices you have to use with dcs. I much prefer a one box solution. The PB is much simpler to operate.
As I expect you know Andreas Koch worked with EMM labs before developing the MPS 5. There are similarities in the physical design of the 2 brands. I have never heard an EMM labs machine but I suspect the sound would be neater to the playback than the dcs sound.