Outstanding digital components

[goraman]

In your experience, what digital components have really amazed you? It can be anything from a CD player to a DAC to an MP3 player.

I'll start, it has to be my Apogee Mini DAC which just gets better and better, so musical and natural with no sense of mechanical interference, slightly oddball looks but then again, who wants convention? :



I'd have to say the dCS Puccini which really impressed me at the Manc show - very neutral, lively and real.



The Pioneer PDR-609 CD Recorder. These machines were so good that the copies were virtually indistinguishable from the originals. I mastered my 2004 album to one of these.



Denon DVD-A1. Had one of these a while back, extraordinary universal player with amazing video processing (aside from occasional chroma upsampling issues) and excellent, if not quite audiophile, sound quality. Built like a brick poo house.



Marantz SR-9600. Super flexible, more inputs than your average hi-fi shop and thundering cinema ability.

I also had the PD 609 recorder and your right,It made amazeing recordings but lacked in the playback department.
The little internal headphone amp with ajustable volume was a nice touch and didn't sound to bad with low impeadance headphones.
The special digital audio cd's got a little hard to find so I sold mine with a Pioneer Spec 1 and Spec 2 ,he is driveing some Klipsch La Scallas, The spec 2 after the Echo wars rebuild and mods did 355 watts RMS into 8 ohms per side before clipping. La Scallas are 106 DB. That scares the hell out of me!

I think one of the better deals in Dig.audio is the Music Hall 25.2 they sound awsome right out of the box and can be modded to the point of insanity.

[Pentland Bill]

I would nominate the Harman Kardon HD990 CDP as it is very affordable, punches well above it's weight soundwise and is versatile with it's single ended/balanced outputs and optical/SP/Dif inputs so you can use outboard digital equipment so it could be used as a DAC. I use mine with a digibox so I get the benefit of radio 3 ( Freeview ) and yes, Radio 3 can sound very good indeed through this set up.

[mikecole]

I just bought an HRT Music Streamer and this is the first time I have heard a digital piece of gear that gave me at least some hope that I would be able to enjoy digital based sound. A CD played thru this still sounds like a CD - to my ears it is still a relentless wave of sound - however, this adds a lot of humanity to the music, especially voices. Maybe the high priced spreads, of which I have not heard any, really can sound decent.

[stevekr]

I nominate the ipod classic 160GB and onkyo ns-1 dock with Stan's the man DAC (any flavour). The best I've heard from my system using these game changing components. All files ripped aif with itunes (OSX) using error correction when ripping for a verbatim copy and eq and sound check off.

[Butuz]

Gotta admit the Beresford 7520 amazed me. Considering the budget'ness of my entire set up it made a massive difference to everything from CD's to XBOX Games to PC.

Fantastic

Butuz

[YNWaN]

In your experience, what digital components have really amazed you?

My Sony MP3 player has amazing battery life; other than that I can't think of any .

[Ali Tait]

The Squeezebox Touch.Great piece of kit.Sounds brilliant through my Audionote dac.So easy to set up too,first kit of this type I've used and I had it playing music inside 10 minutes of plugging it in.

[magiccarpetride]

The Squeezebox Touch.Great piece of kit.Sounds brilliant through my Audionote dac.So easy to set up too,first kit of this type I've used and I had it playing music inside 10 minutes of plugging it in.

Same experience with Squeezebox Duet. Came home, took it out of the box, plugged it in, and without ANY prodding whatsoever, the remote asked me to enter the password for my wireless router. Next thing I know, I'm using the remote to browse my music library and I'm listening to my music while my lower jaw is firmly planted on the floor. The sound coming out of that dinky little plastic box was a revelation.

That day marked the life transforming journey towards the sublime sound. Next thing you know, I'm buying a pair of Magneplanar speakers. Then, I'm ordering Beresford Caiman DAC. Now I'm shopping for a kick ass power amp, and am eyeing the Mye stands for my Maggies.

The rest is history...

One other digital component I'd like to nominate: Sony Playstation 3. Same as Squeezebox, only this gadget lets me also stream my movies wirelessly.

[Tasuke]

the 1987/1990 PIONEER PD-91.











a sumptuous goddess of a CD player,
that resolves in the minutest of detail.

my first PD-91 got destroyed in a tragic accident,

and, coming today or tomorrow will be another,
minty copy of this magnificent machine.

i'll keep you guys posted...

[Alex_UK]

There was one for sale on here - upgraded - a while back. I said then that I love the Elite stuff, hope to get one one day... http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=7054

(PS - what happened to Magiccarpetride?)