Next upgrade - a new DAC?/ newbie

[Lee Henley]

The Naim DAC is one of the least musical pieces of kit I have heard in recent times. It was completely uninvolving in all five of the diverse systems I have now heard it in.

I wasn't particularly impressed with the DACmagic either. I think the Caiman is a much better DAC for the same price.

Never tried the Caiman but might over the coming months, when I brought the DM it was a toss of a coin between the Caiman and the DM to be honest.

Im waiting for the Rega Dac and the Audiolab Dac to see what they are like before I make the next move, also interested to hear what the M2Tech is al about once they are available.

Lee

[jmj]

Hello all,

Hope no one minds if I hijacki this thread temporarily for my own purposes, but I would be interested in getting your opinions on how I might improve my current hi fi set up.

I have a Rega Planet mk1 which is mated to a 7520 Beresford Dac, which I have recently had Tirna Electronics upgrade. Early impressions are excellent, more details and better sound staging. I'm now thinking about changing the Planet for a better transport and I noticed that the Pioneer PD-S904 CD player has been recommended here.

Would this be a worthwhile upgrade and improve the quality of my system, what else should I consider? 95% of my music collection is on cds.

Thanks

[The Grand Wazoo]

Hi Josh,
Welcome to the Art of Sound.
There are plenty of folks here who, I'm sure are more than capable & willing to give you the help you need.

.....but would you mind first dodging over to the Welcome area & starting a new thread there to introduce yourself, your system & musical tastes to us all, please?

Thanks a lot

[Alex_UK]

Hello all,

Hope no one minds if I hijacki this thread temporarily for my own purposes, but I would be interested in getting your opinions on how I might improve my current hi fi set up.

I have a Rega Planet mk1 which is mated to a 7520 Beresford Dac, which I have recently had Tirna Electronics upgrade. Early impressions are excellent, more details and better sound staging. I'm now thinking about changing the Planet for a better transport and I noticed that the Pioneer PD-S904 CD player has been recommended here.

Would this be a worthwhile upgrade and improve the quality of my system, what else should I consider? 95% of my music collection is on cds.

Thanks

Hi jmj - I believe it was me who recommended a PD-S904 on another thread to someone who was starting from scratch with no CD player (if I recall correctly) and for under £100 I would still say it would be a great transport and the Stable Platter Mechanism is both different (you place the CD label side down on a "turntable") and they are supposed to last well.

However, I'm not sure it would necessarily be an upgrade on your Rega - for ME - I struggled to notice much if any difference feeding a signal to my Caiman - whether I use my Marantz SACD/CD player, Laptop CD-Rom, PS3, Xbox360 or the PD-S904 they all sound very very similar to me, if not the same... I'm not saying transports don't make any difference, but... well, maybe I am! What I guess I am saying is that as long your DAC is getting a decent stream of 1s and 0s, that is all that matters... Much more subtle differences than tweaking the DAC, IMO...

[DSJR]

What makes you think the Rega Planet mk1 is lacking? OK, operationally it's not "the end," but if correctly sited (no suspension to speak of), it's stable and when the chaps at Acoustica (look at their website) looked at the Planet for mods, the comment was made that the machine was well designed and stable and not in need of major mods except to remove the ouput filter, which beggars up the output impedance. the Pioneer will certainly operate more slickly though.

[jmj]

Hello Chris,

Thanks for that, I have started a new thread as you suggested containing more information about me, my h-fi etc.

Dave/Alex thanks you also. The short response is that I don't think my Planet is lacking really, I'm very fond of the player. I was just interested to see what other people thought and if any notable improves could be made by replacing it?

Actually Alex have you seen this website: http://www.decdun.me.uk/upgradinghifi.html#upgradingcds.

The author makes quite a good argument that gains can be made by upgrading the transport amongst other thing. I was quite convinced anyway but then I am a bit of hi-fi novice.

[StanleyB]

The author makes quite a good argument that gains can be made by upgrading the transport amongst other thing. I was quite convinced anyway but then I am a bit of hi-fi novice.

Fortunately those arguments don't hold water anymore. Modern day technology, mainly as a result of the high accuracy required in order to play back DVD, has made it possible to achieve a high level of accuracy with even cheap mechanisms. The key ingredient is the laser pickup, not the transport. Some of the high end CD pickups cost a small fortune, and are predominantly three beam laser types.

[jmj]

Hello Stan,

Thanks for your posting. Are you saying therefore that unless I go for a very expensive cd transport/player I won't see much difference? I did buy the Planet in the late 1990s so wouldn’t a more modern player make some difference?

Also, I wanted to thank you for recommending Tirna Electronics. I used them to upgrade my Beresford Dac tl-7520 and the improvements are impressive. Notably, more details and better sound staging.

Josh