[b]cd player musings[/b] Having played around with a few cd players of late, its time to give some thoughts... the contenders 1/chord dac64 2/audionote dac 1.1 kit 3/ audioalchemy dde v1.1 4/ full modded acoustic precision eikos 5/ naim cdi chord dac 64. i won't write any techy on this as I don't really understand digital, but its done different, the watts transient alighned filter is a software algorithm, loaded into a xilinx chip by an eprom. So its basically Digital signal processing. It sounds big, I think it has a high output volts, as its very loud, and this can make you think its better. It is good, detail, brass sounds brassy, harmonics on cymbols are crisp, sound as they should, images are dead solid. Bit to clinical for my liking tho', need more music. When attenuated to regular levels, it doesn't sound quite as superior, so its a little bit of a con trick. Audionote dac. Very natural, zero feedback valve output stage, gives a bit of roughness to strings, and slighty shouty, bright compared to the eikos, but compared to the chord, sounds olde worlde strings. no digital filter at all, just an inductor and capacitor to roll off dirty digital signals. Bass is lighter. Like timpy said,the dde is an absolute riot, the most bass I have ever heard, really powerful, very forward, slightly dirty compared to the best, but you may not notice. superb. why did they have to go? Naim cdi...very natural, not tiring at all, I don't know where they got the reputation, more natural and musical than the chord, bass seems to go deeper on some tracks, less on others, but real dynamic tension, and everything sounds just right. compared to the best, again a slight grain, and a rolled off top end, but I can see the attraction. Very musical indeed. eikos, the full modded bar the very latest pulse psu version. this one has lithos a and ds, and an external psu. Bass goes deepest, treble is smoothed, but you don't think you are missing much, it has ambience in droves, and detail and power, not quite matching the dde power wise, which runs it close, overall the eikos is better, but the dde is close. hoever compare to budgets, and the eikos detail and power will make them sound anaemic. definately the best of the bunch, at a price tho' ouch.
