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Upgrade from an original HRT Music Streamer II

I'm currently enjoying streaming a ton of great music from MOG.com via an original HRT Music Streamer II (red trapezoid shape) into my system. I'm thinking of upgrading to a newer DAC, one which can also handle digital optical inputs from a widescreen Sony TV and DVD player. I may also want to "experiment" with patching my Rotel RCD-1072 deck through this new DAC as well. Since most of my "true listening pleasure" still comes from LP's and CD's, I want to keep to a $300 budget for my "extra" computer listening and TV/DVD watching. My main choices seem to be the Emotiva XDA-2 (currently on sale direct from Emotiva for $249) or the Musical Fidelity V-DAC 90. What are your thoughts ? And as a second question,..... will a new DAC give me a worthwhile musical enjoyment improvement form my Rotel, or is the Rotel deck pretty perfect just the way it is ? I'd appreciate any comments and thoughts directly answering my question or even somehow related to it. Thanks a lot, and Happy Holidays !
adam18
mofimadness's avatar
mofimadness
5,362 posts
 
I just bought the Emotiva XDA-2 DAC at the special price of
$249. Received it yesterday and got it hooked up. Burning
it in now.

This thing is scary good. I can't believe that Emotiva can
sell this for even the $399 list price and make money on it.
At $249 with free shipping and a 30 day trial period and a 5
year transferrable warranty, it's stupid good.

I really like the ability to turn on and off the 96K
upsampling feature. I bought this primary to try this
feature on MOG and Pandora. It works and sounds fantastic.

The unit is built very well and the metal remote is
amazingly solid.

Not sure if I like this better than my fully modded Eastern
Electric Minimax tube DAC with DEXA discrete op-amps, but it
does sound better with MOG and Pandora than the Minimax.

It still needs to burn in, but so far, I am VERY impressed
with the XDA-2 DAC.
adam18 OP
670 posts
 
Thanks for the comments Mofi ! After reading many really nice reviews of the XDA-2, and considering the amazing price of $249 with free shipping and a 30 day "home audition" policy, I just ordered it direct from Emotiva. I'm pretty psyched about this, and will keep you guys updated once I have it up and running.
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
I had an MS-II and then got the HD version which is considerably more detailed and smooth.
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