need suggestions - transport for EVS Millenium Dac

While the Pioneer DVD 440 might work fine as a transport, this is one of the newer units that supposedly has the "bad dac's" in it. As such, you might want to shop around for another model that would offer slightly greater versatility as an "all in one" type of player. Should your external DAC ever go down, you would at least have a decent standby player without having "earbleeds" to worry about that way.

If it is still available, i would check into the Teac VRDS model that is currently listed for $450. I was thinking about buying it myself for one of my systems, but if another "needy soul" was to snag it first... : )

If that one is gone, go to www.yahooshopping.com and do a search for a Parasound CBD-2000. Some place has factory refurbs for $500, which is a phenomenal deal. This is a belt drive top loading player, but also makes for a great transport. As mentioned, this would also give you a pretty reasonable "one box" to use in an emergency. I just ordered one of these for my brother to feed his Millennium with. We will play around with cables when it shows up.

Out of curiosity, what digital cable are you using ? Sean
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thanks for all the input

Sean, I am currently using the Z cable that Ric sells with the milleniums but was looking to upgrade (Acoustic Zen, Cardas, Straight Wire)

NOTE - Ric posted a news release on his sight yesterday and is now NO LONGER making the MILLENIUM II. He will only be doing onboard mods to players. I was hoping for balanced outputs for my dac so that I could go into an ARC LS5 without cheater plugs, oh well.

so tell me more about the teac

I may hold off for an affordable DVD/DVD-A/Cd that actually outputs 24/96 from DVDA. Ric told me none of the current ones do that.

Sean

thanks for the heads up on the teac/wadia piece
that's awful nice giving me the nod on that one

I may snag it if it's still available
I sent a note into the owner already, thanks

I can't believe Ric has discontinued his Milleniums,
but then being the tweek he is, he felt more comfortable doing full unit mods. I'll keep my dac and it will be the center of my digital playback system for years

sean,

wasn't it you who had a slight hum in your evs and had ric look at it? I still can't get rid of my slight hum, I loosened nut holding the power supply and still get a subtle hum.

I'm curious what coax cable you are using
or would I be better sending my unit back and going to balanced inputs (I have the option)

thanks

Tom

Hey Tom,
I tried pairing several transports with my Bel Canto Dac, and found that a DVD player, while good, was not nearly as good in my system as a dedicated redbook transport. I settled on a used Proceed CDD, which is a little out of the price range you mention, but also tried and liked the Theta Pearl quite a bit, which is in your range if you can find a lightly used model. Also, the Pioneer 525 I used sounded distinctly better through coax (Acoustic Zen Photon, with which I am very happy) than through any of several Toslink cables in 1 or 2 meters. Hope this helps.

C.

Tom, i also liked the Pearl with the Mill II. It is also a decent cosmetic match if things of that nature matter to you or your "better half".

In terms of having a hum, yes, that was me. I ended up sending that DAC back to Ric as an outright return because of it. After trying a few other dac's, i ended up buying another Millennium II. This one is slightly different in that it i can run it directly courtesy of his built in attenuators with their own output jacks or run it into the preamp via the standard line level outputs. I've never run it direct though, as i have other sources in that system and can't spare the versatility of a preamp.

As it is, I think that there is some kind of "problem" between the preamp that i'm running and the Mill II, but it still sounds better than all of the other combo's that i tried. If i can find something that reduces or removes the hum, i'll let you know.

As to the Teac, is it still available or gone ? As mentioned in the original ad, it uses a mechanism that is highly respected and the basis for machines that cost THOUSANDS of dollars. As such, it would make for a great transport at a reasonable price. Sean
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