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Digital Front End: Critical Listening

I'm motivated to write this post after some initial comparisons I made between the DAC in my Marantz DVD player and my Levinson 360S. Using the Marantz as transport, these units fed into a Mccormack RLD1 pre, a Levinson 334 amp, and Celestion SL12si monitors. I realise this system is not your typical "high-end" system used for comparison.
The problem is that I couldn't hear much of a difference between the Marantz and the Levinson. Actually I felt a little foolish for having paid over $3000 for the Levinson when it doesn't seem to offer asignificant improvement. The Marantz is a mid-level DVD player with their "HDAM" technology which is said to replace op amps.
Can anyone offer an opinion as to why I'm not hearing not only a significant difference but drastic improvement with the Levinson. Could it be the Preamp not passing on the improved resolution offered by the 360S? Or maybe it's the speakers but I really don't think so.

Any thoughts?
sjh32
seandtaylor99
1,262 posts
 
A couple of thoughts:
1) The marantz transport could be the limiting factor if the 360S is not reclocking the digital input. Does the 360s reclock the digital input to remove jitter ? The marantz player probably does not have a very good clock internally. Mind you, it seems unacceptable to me that the 360, costing over $3k doesn't reclock the input !

2) People overemphasize the differences in digital. My own experiences are that moving from a $400 player to a $2000 player do not give the same leap in performance as that amount would do in terms of speakers or amplifiers.
rsbeck
887 posts
 
>>People overemphasize the differences in digital<<

I completely disagree. The difference between a $1,000 [new] Universal Player like the Yamaha s2300 and a 1,700 [used] cd/sacd player like the
Sony SCD XA777ES is nothing short of astounding. The difference between the Sony and the Meitner Emm Labs DAC6 is a similar order of magnitude. Astounding. Speakers are important -- and I might even rate them as most important, but the quality of your front end matters -- a lot. After you find a nice set of speakers, do yourself a favor and get a great front end.
mr_bill
349 posts
 
I'm with you Sean, differences in digital are small.
dennis_the_menace's avatar
dennis_the_menace
467 posts
 
yep, learned this from personal experience as well. moving up in digital didn't really net much for me... small differences for big bucks.
bigkidz
3,413 posts
 
I know what you guys are saying is true but recently wehn I tried a few different preamps in my system one really changed my system significantly versus the others having mreo of this or more of that. Also when I had my ystem build around the B&W Matrix 803 speakers, differences were not that great. Now the system could be the limiting factor so before you make your decision, try a differnt DAC like the ELectrocompaniet and see what it does in your system for example and see what you hear with it. If it does not change the sound you are hearing (maybe not significantly but for the better over the Marantz) then your system could be the limiting factor.

Just my opinion and guessing at best.
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