Upgrade: Berkeley Alpha DAC or new Universal Player
bwright -- Mon, 07/20/2009 - 17:29
During a recent listening session, I realized my system needs an upgrade. There seems to be a lack of detail and soundstage depth, compared to other similarly priced components/systems I've heard lately. I live in a shotgun style apartment with a high ceiling, and have tried everything - rolling a variety of tubes (to positive effect), moving the speakers incrementally for hours - and yet the end result has been the same.
The current configuration is a pair of Avalon Symbol speakers, REL T2 sub, Cayin A88-T integrated amp and Marantz DV9500 universal player, with MIT AVT1 speaker cables and Audioquest Cheetah interconnects. With so many variables possible, I decided to start with the universal player. I have an extensive collection of SACDs, and I'd like to take advantage of the format wherever possible. Thus my question - would you buy a quality DAC (Berkeley Alpha, Audio Research DAC7, etc.) and hook it up to the current player, or obtain a similarly priced universal player from one of the usual suspects (Esoteric X-05, etc.)? A few DACs I've heard in the past seemed to "flatten out" the sound and remove the life from the music, to the detriment of the original intent/recording. However, recent reviews tend to suggest otherwise with certain units.
I also saw the excellent article on the Audio Space Reference 3.1 300B integrated this month, and will be giving that an audition in Mountain View next week.
If you have any other suggestions based on the system above, it would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
Bill
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sounds like for you its an easy choice. If you have got hundreds of SACDs that you want to keep playing...then Id get the Esoteric X-05 or Ayre C5-xe MP. If you plan to add a music server with a hard disk, I would go for the Berkeley which I did. I am not into SACD's so it was a much easier choice for me. If a universal SACD player has a digital input then you can add the music server to that and it solves both of your concerns with one player. A very expensive approach would be to get both.......I don't know if that would really be worth it financially. I do think that SACD or DVDA will die out and the future is pointing very significantly to Hard disk music servers and Hi-resolution audio weather downloads or via companies like HR-X recordings. IMHO.
I agree with Sam that if you plan to get a music server, the Berkeley is the way to go. If you want to continue playing SACD, a universal player is the answer.
Marantz just announced a very interesting player:
http://us.marantz.com/Products/2936.asp