Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Charles 1 dad, I agree that the Trinity sounded clinical and sterile at CES, but on same token I've heard it sound quite engaging in another system in Hong Kong. Not as relaxed, warm or fIuid as the Trinity phono. I believe that the synergy of components as a whole is what makes or break a component. I also agree with Tbg findings on the L7 dac. I did hear some positive attributes of communicating the musical message at CES from the L7. Such a fine line between speed, detail, musicality.

Aplhifi-usa, you do know that BMC is a German company and that they have trained all their workers and make most of the parts within the company?

You realize that I'm in Texas and they are in the NYC environment. They are about as far from me as Moscow is from Paris.

I think it is interesting that this started as a cd only dac and now is everything.

Hello Himiguel,
Yes, this precisely why I prefaced my statement regarding associated components, room etc. I've had enough listening experiences where changing just an item or two causes significant changes in the sound quality. I not surprised that you heard the same characteristics from the Trinity DAC. At the show at that particular time there's no other way to describe the sound.I had expected better, many rooms at CES manage to get very good sound. High Water Sound, Lamm and Concert Fidelity just to name a few always seem to sound fine on my visits.
Charles,

The Lampizator is musical but of no real interest to me. It doesn't sound real.

Well if the L7 in stock tube form is somewhat dimensionally flat as is the stock B6, I would have to agree. But like any tube product, if one goes with stock tubes and tries no other, then they likely have already set the failing state of such a product.

We spend so much time tuning the rest of of our system with cables, isolation, room treatments, etc., but the tube products, with the potential of much improvement, are completely ignored….either out of laziness or the nonsense that we are told that the product was "voiced" for the installed tube set and thus this is the optimized implementation. Such voicing is often mediocre at best. I have been able to take EVERY tube product to a major level of performance increase with the swapping of one or more tubes.

As for what is musical is what I define as a system that makes me feel I am listening to the real mccoy. On some great recordings I have, on LP and Digital, the Lampizator B6 is mighty mighty close to the Clearaudio/Graham/Decca phono setup I'm currently using. The B6's tonality and dynamic contrasts are spot on and only lags behind the phono with some lost ambiance and depth.

I've been to enough audio shows to know maybe 1 in 10 rooms make it worth my while to stay more than 30 seconds. Much talk is the time to setup and let the system settle down in the "new" room. But I recently moved a system upstairs and had awesome results with the start of the first track…..room not treated or optimized at all. So I don't think it is a room issue as much as it is the assembly of products that work well as a system. Unless these have already been optimized ahead of time, it is futile to expect them to simply work well in any room whether familiar or an unfamiliar demo or mid-sized hotel room.

tbg,
If the inexpensive BMC puredac floats your boat, then that is all that matters. Price is always secondary to personal pleasure and synergy within the context of your system. I personally find the 1k Marantz NA8005 network player supremely pleasurable, elevating the overall sound quality of my system by a considerable margin.

Charles,
+1. Audio vocabulary has always been a bugbear in this hobby.