I have been using the dac in my 088 -> 911-> magico S3, I am looking to upgrade my dac not really interested in a cdp and looking to spend in the $15K area, was interested in the chord dave, berkeley reference, possibly totaldac. I feel that the system needs a touch of warm but not to much. suggestions are all welcome.
I have been using the dac in my 088 -> 911-> magico S3, I am looking to upgrade my dac not really interested in a cdp and looking to spend in the $15K area, was interested in the chord dave, berkeley reference, possibly totaldac. I feel that the system needs a touch of warm but not to much. suggestions are all welcome.
Check with Sujay, he has a Burmester 911 mk3, 088 pre, into rockport aviors. He recently bought the Balanced Lampi 7 and loves it. Also owns the AMG TT with Benz LPS. You can choose to spend on a Golden Gate, but B7 should be sufficient.
Sujay and I mostly listen to PCM. Lampi DSD is great and the R2R PCM is as good as it's DSD and better than anything I have heard. The Lampi sound is not because of its DSD, but because of its DHT (direct heated triodes). It lets you put some of the best valves in audio at the front of the chain - better valves than most well known preamps and power amps have. There are a lot of Lampi owners totally into PCM. The fact that you can upsample all your PCM to DSD is a separate point for those who like doing that.
I am a Burmester fan ...up to 2008, the best I've heard from PCM was the Burmester 980... Still have great memories of this DAC. I haven't had the opportunity to audition any of the more recent Burmester PCM products. They mostly favor the CDP approach nowadays. I listen to files these days , almost exclusively. Have you tried to audition the DAC modules for the 088?
My current personal choice would be the Berkeley Audio DAC TOL ( Forgot the exact model name, Reference?). The MSRP is over your budget but with some haggling you should be able to snatch a new or barely used.
I have great things about the Merging Technologies' NADAC but haven't had the pleasure audition it. By most account a stellar product. You should audition this one too.
Check with Sujay, he has a Burmester 911 mk3, 088 pre, into rockport aviors. He recently bought the Balanced Lampi 7 and loves it. Also owns the AMG TT with Benz LPS. You can choose to spend on a Golden Gate, but B7 should be sufficient.
Thanks Kedar for chiming in on my behalf....... I agree that the Big 7 is as good as it gets and one probably doesn't need to spend on the GG. I have the Burmester 061 CDP which I now use only as transport. I have tried the Bryston BDA-3 and the BADA alpha DAC and the lampizator is miles ahead, as a package, in dynamics, presence, tone and soundstage width and depth. Actually, the sheer amount of drive in the lampizator is unusual for a DAC and I have to keep my 088 down -6db to compensate and prevent distortion. I recently got the resistors changed to reduce the gain and strangely the dynamics have improved even further.
Obviously I haven't tried everything out there but I can say with conviction that in my system, I haven't had a better DAC so far. You may probably get a tad more transparency by paying lot more but imv, music is about the complete package and transparency is not everything........please don't get me wrong - my balanced big 7 is as transparent as the the Berkeley alpha DAC with better separation, front to back layering and micro dynamics. I think it's got to do with the DHT output and the power supplies.
Enough said.....in short, can't go wrong with the lampizator. And by the way, 99% of my music is PCM
We have both. I recommend running native. Some like upsampling. Personally I think some sound better native some sound better upsampled. Upsampling is a filter, so it will color the sound and change the tone, etc. In some cases this sounds better, in some cases not. In either case, i am suggesting Lampi without this as a consideration...the fact that it kicks ass PCM, AND you have the additional option to upsample or to play DSD/