Wadia 861 vs. Gamut CD1r vs Sonic Frontiers T3/P3

Ultrakaz-Is your Gamut the newer CD1R?

I'd also be interested hearing from anyone that's compared
the 861 to the 301.

Thanks.

My Gamut is the original. I read in a post at the Digital Asylum from the designer of the Gamut, he wrote that the "revised" CD1R has an improved power supply. And that this improvement affects the midrange not bass. I had a number of audiophile friends over to listen to the CD1 and none of them thought that the bass was lacking. Again, the strengths of this player are balance (no bass or treble boost), lack of digital edge, and soundstaging. All of which the Wadia does equally well or better, but at more than twice the cost.

Pass on the Sonic T3/P3...BUT, areal sleeper is the SFD2 mark3...which does 24/96 unlike the much more expensive P3.
Match it with a D2D upsampler/reclocker with the I2se interface and a nice transport and you have a world class sound for a very reasonable.
dan

Ultrakaz- mahalo for the info. People said the same thing about the Gamut amp, which I owned and I agree about the Gamut's balanced sound. I'd like to compare the Wadia 301 to the Gamut CD1R.

I had the opportunity to compare the GamuT to the Wadia 830 before buying. With the Wadia, I foudn myself thinking about the detail, resolution and soundtaging; with the GamuT I found myself pulled into the music at an emotional level. Critical listening, as difficult as it was, revealed that all the same details were there, but they weren't presented as such; they were a part of the musical fabric.

For what it's worth, I own the De Capos as well, and the GamuT has a similar balance and musicality (which does not mean 'creative frequency response') that gets right to the point of making music. These two are very happy together in my system, although I think they're conspiring to replace my amp with something tubed and very expensive.

As far as the bass response goes: my $150 Audio Alchemy DDE 2 (with some uprated PS) has more/louder bass than the GamuT. A $1000 cd player I had in the system recently had even more, although with precious little control over it. The jump from 'more bass' to 'better player' escapes me. The key is in finding the correct/natural frequency response.