Wadia 860, Levinson & Aero Cap Direct into Amp

I have owned the 860x and Capitole Mk 2 at the same time and did a fair bit of comparing before I sold the 860x. To me the Capitole is far preferable to the 860x, in every way, within seconds you can hear how much more natural and lifelike the Capitole sounds. Have never heard the Accuphase, or Levinson in my own system. I did own a Resolution Audio CD50 for a time and was quite unimpressed by it.

Ejlif- As a former cap. MkII owner I think you made a WISE choice, I have owned accuphase digital and have listened to wadia extensively and found both to be very unmusical compared to the audio aero unit. From all of my experiences, running direct to an amp has always sounded better with players that use analog volume control- the wadia and accuphase use digital volume control and bits are lost! I didn't believe it when I owned my accuphase front end, but there is so much more information your not hearing and its so transparent and enjoyable- there simply is NO comparison, if you have used both in your system for any length of time. I am sure some will disagree, however this has been my experience time and time again. Good luck with the quest!

If you have the opportunity, listen to an 861 with the Great Northern Sound Statement Upgrade.

I totally agree with Tireguy. Running the AA Cap into the amp is the way to go. I run mine through a McIntosh 2102 (tube) amp and I also biamp it into a pair of self-powered electrostats which sit in my office. The McIntosh gets the unbalanced feed. Also, the AA serves as my preamp as I run my satellite, DVD, and when I don't feel like getting up and changing discs, I use the toslink feed and run my off-the-shelf Yamaha 5-disc cd player through it to get the best from the AA's DAC. I only regret that it does not have an analog passthrough to run my tuner through it, too. I am told that a future version of the AA will have this feature.

Alas, now it it only could come with a headphone jack......

The Levinson sounded, to me, to be more natural and balanced than the Wadia that I heard it against. The Wadai had the more incisivly etched image but that just wasn't natural to me. The 390 threw a hugh sound stage with awesome bass. Female voices were spot-on.

Every disk sounds cleaner and more musically interesting, even the bad ones. (Even though all the flaws are evident, the 390 doesn't shove them at you like some CD players do. It seems do the music first and the crap takes a back seat. Just like analog there.)