Disclaimer: I am a Resolution Audio dealer.
I also at one time had a Northstar combo in which I used the Revelation Audio I2S cable. It was quite a nice digital front end considering I am an analogy person first and foremost. I kept it for a few years until I discovered the Lessloss Audio DAC 2004 MkII and CEC TL51X combo where the transport is slaved to the DAC. I much preferred this combo over the Northstar and it has been my reference digital front end for nearly 5 years now.
I have always had an interest in Resolution Audio and for a couple years wanted to try the Opus 21. Last year I finally had my chance as I was setting up a balanced system featuring the Atmasphere S-30 amp. So I picked up a Opus 21 and ran it direct into the S-30. I was pretty impressed with the sound, much so that I used the Opus 21 in our room at The SHOW Las Vegas last year. It is quite a musical player in stock form and can only imagine how good it is with the GNSC mods. Alas though, in head to head competition with my Lessloss/CEC combo the Opus 21 fell short so I eventually sold it.
Given the evolution of computer audio and not having such a large CD collection (less than 500 CDs) I have been on the fence with computer audio, but realized it was a matter of time before I would want to really look into that option. A while back I had the opportunity to try the Sonic Weld Diverter in my system and was impressed with what it did, just using a basic iTunes interface after loading a couple CDs on my MacBook. I kept that device in the back of my mind, but then along came the Cantata.
The attraction to the Cantata for me is the flexibility. I can still play CDs and use it for computer audio. It also has a nice built in volume control so I can run it direct into the S-30 and have a very simple one source system. I had heard the Cantata at a couple of audio shows and was impressed enough with the sound that I eventually arranged a trial with Steve Huntley and I was not disappointed. From my recollection the Cantata is a noticeable improvement over the stock Opus 21.
The real shocker to me though is how much I have enjoyed using the USB connection to play music off my MacBook. I now use Pure Music as the interface and over the last few weeks have ripped nearly my entire collection of CDs onto the hard drive. The nice thing about the Cantata is that you can do an A/B comparison with the USB and CD inputs on the fly in near real time (a bit of a lag in terms of trying to synch the sources but close enough). In my comparisons to date, I could find no difference in sound quality between the two. I recall being very skeptical about computer audio capabilities for quite sometime even though some people whose opinions I respect and much of what I read about it here and elsewhere have provided solid support for it. Now the Cantata has really convinced me this is the way to go.
