CDQ on the way

[Lee Henley]

Seeing as I have now sold my Young Dac Ive decided to get me a CDQ on the basis that the good lady wife can now play her cd's and I can still have the facility to hook my mac to the inbuilt Dac, it will also enable me to use a digital pre amp and make my integrated amp a power amp.

Ive not heard the CDQ as such, only at the Bristol show last year, all be it a very short in brief listen, I was wondering if anyone on here was using one of these and if the sound lived upto the reviews that I have read, its supposed to be a decent machine!

Any help much appreciated

Lee

[Alex_UK]

I heard one briefly last year Lee, but not in a system I knew or in comparison to anything else though - it did sound good, in that context, and as you say, it has good reviews... Good luck with it.

[Lee Henley]

Hopefully it should be here this week, possibly monday or tuesday, so long as it sounds half decent thats all that really matters to me these days. I want to try the digital pre-amp with my valve amp just to see what all the fuss is about

Will post my thoughts when I have had a play with it

Lee

[technobear]

I've had my CDQ for over a year now and I still love it to bits. I don't have a bad word to say for it. Which is best of the analogue or digital pre will depend on your power amp. If the latter has a lot of gain, you might find the digital pre a little noisy and prefer the analogue pre. Fear not though because the analogue pre is also a class act. Superb bit of kit.

[Lee Henley]

Had a few days with this machine now and must admit its a very nice device. I initially had it running through the RCA plugs but yesterday my new XLR leads arrived thus allowing me to use the balnced outs to the balanced ins on my amp, the balanced ins on the amp have a valve stage present.

The overall sound using balanced is much better than RCA, they actually say this in the manual, the soundstage is much wider, taller, deeper and the sound itself has a lot more body.

Overall Im liking this machine, very flexible in that its a async dac and a CD spinner, one thing though is it does get warm whilst in operation.

In comparison to the Young in my system Id say the CDQ has a little bit more detail and is a touch more forward, however in the defence of the Young the cymbals sounded better wih the Young. The CDQ has only got 12 hours on the clock so will need further playing to get it burnt in.

If anyone is looking for an all in one digital solution then I can reccomend this device and if they are passing the West Midlands then drop me a PM and they are more than welcome to come and have a listen.

Lee