Musical Fidelity A3 24 What R My Ears Telling Me?

Thanks to all for the response. This is a very difficult situation in that I really want for the MF to work, but I believe that there are some problems. According to MF, this DAC was made with the sole purpose of working with all transports of all quality levels. I don't buy the Sony is trash theory because MF uses Sony transports on their CD and the DVP 999ES is a $1500.00 unit, certainly not the top of the line for Redbook or SACD but certainly a very respectable player. I have thousands of CD's and my main purpose for buying the MF DAC was to unleash the "sonic magic" in them. I bought the MF in late September/early October of 2002 so I believe that it is one of the later units shipped. Now that I recall, I remember doing A/B comparissons with my other 2 players and I would have to say that it was 50/50 on the improvement side depending on the music. There was usually an improvement with the high end and some harmonic excitement but I'm really beginning to wonder how much of a difference it actually made. There were times when the "downsampling" took place, so I'm sure that this is not an exclusive problem to just the Sony. I'm pretty hard to fool as I have a home recording sudio and have done a number of remastering jobs. Sometimes we find ourselves convincing ourselves that things are are such and such a way when they really are not...this could be
the case here. I boght this because of the Tellig article. When I heard a demo of the unit, I really did not hear much of a differnece but I chalked that up to being in a demo situation and since I had 14 days to return the item, I decided to take the plunge. My ears are telling me that the sound of the Sony by itself (using Tara Lab interconnets, ML Aerius i with ML cables, and Classe amps) sounds superior to that of MF processed sound. On follow up articles, Tellig also admits that at times he cannot tell the difference between the processed and unprocessed sounds (In particular with the New McIntosh Multi disc player and others). My 0.2 cents..or actually $1300.00 worth!

-JB-

Just because it is an expensive box that plays multiple formats doesn't in any ways mean it makes for a good transport to drive an external dac, acutally the opposite is most likely, as the vast majority of DVD players make awful transports, what comes out of their digital output can be pretty ugly. Look inside a good dedicated transport and you'll be amazed at how different it is compared to your Sony, or most every sub $3k CD player on the market for that matter. If you're happy with the sound from the Sony, by all means, use it, but I wouldn't discard the MF dac so quickly, not before mating it with a quality dedicated transport. Another problem with good equiptment is its revealing nature. If other pieces in the chain have flaws, good sounding gear can be forgiving and it can go hidden, but great sounding gear can sound like crap in the wrong system, and the fault can be wrongly placed on the newly inserted piece of gear, whereas it is simply exposing a problem or shortcoming elsewhere. Just some food for thought, I've been down a similar path recently and am sure it is a common occurance with other systems as well....

And, again, "Downsampling" should never happen with this player, unless your unit is ill and needs servicing.

This relates more to getting even better sound out of the Sony. Apparently not common knowledge, but by default, the Dynamic Range Control is set to actually give you compression-that setting should be changed to "Wide".

Also by default "CD Direct" is turned off and this should be turned on. I'm not sure whether either of these settings would have an effect on the data being sent with the Sony being used strictly as a transport, but they are supposed to make a significant difference in sound quality when it is used on its own. Might be worth a try either way.

Gosh, looking at the feature lists and differences in what one gets between these units is a appalling. MF ought to be downright ashamed for selling such an "under-equipped" player. You would think that, at just over the retail price of the Sony, MF would have at least made this a true player and added the transport, especially since it is so temperamental to transports. And it only plays audio. What part are they using that costs so much?

Under the right conditions I suspect that the MF is a good sounding player. Probably very good. But after just reading the review of the Sony in the Absolute Sound, it apparently is also.

Sorry, but my tolerance on this Monday evening is low. Been a long day.

Neal, a quick look at the 'feature list' of any mass-market product vs. a typical high end product will be just as 'appalling' - and just as beside the point. ("...Only plays audio"? This is a stereo DAC - what else is it supposed to do?) As for price, a Sony who makes millions of units will always be less for what's included; that's just our audiophile lot in life. I don't know about the sound of the MF, but I think Socrates is quite likely on to something here; not being a DVD owner myself, I had forgotten about their poor reputations as transports. I do know that a poor transport/converter combination or interface can kill the sound, and I think this is a possibility that JB might have to rule out, though it may not solve his problem in the end even if proved true. However, I am still perfectly open to the prospect of his simply finding the Sony to be the superior-sounding machine. Again, I come back to asking whether or not he recalls the DAC sounding any better or worse back when it was stomping his previous players used as transports.

(BTW, the phone # for Kevro in Canada, the US distributor for MF, is 905-428-2800, and I think I recall the relevant person as being named Brian, if I'm correct and he's still there...)