About the EMM Labs DAC

To buy EMM Labs gear, contact Jonathan Tinn at Chambers Audio -- (503) 221-0465

Let's be fair. The EMM labs is superb, but it can't make a badly mastered CD or SACD sound good. No player can or ever will. What the EMM does is take good to excellent CDS and SACDs and make them sound tremendous.

There is no question that Meitner is at the top of this game. The problem is, the game itself sucks. Even if I could justify the cost of his products and buy them today, I still can't play DVD-Audio or DVD-Video discs without buying some other player. And of course, Ed would say "why would you want to???". Well, I DO.

Simple fact is, until the format wars are resolved or yet another format completely takes over, there will NOT be enough quality MAINSTREAM music available on ONE hi-res format to finally finish-off CD's as the primary (yet inferior) audio media. And why should it when the general public has no clue that we are all being cheated of good sound quality by a recording industry that does not care?

To Bhouser: AMEN!! Irishdog.

You know what? If you buy a Porsche Carerra, you can't haul the soccer team around. There are always trade-offs. The Linn CD12 costs $20,000 and doesn't play SACD or DVD-A. Since no player or format will make badly recorded software sound like well engineered software,
it is a moot point, you can say that about any player, be it digital, analogue, or whatever -- so, why bring it up? The problem is that if
this player is above the price at which you feel comfortable, you need to find reasons NOT to buy it -- like -- it won't make your coffee, won't walk your dog. People who are buying the high end players like
EMM Labs will just buy another high end player to play DVD-A, just like the guy that owns a porsche will usually have several other cars. And -- the point about high-rez is also moot. Like I said, if High Rez dies,
which I doubt -- follow this -- then we will all be stuck with redbook CD as the standard of digital playback -- and I will have a player that converts redbook to DSD and is the best redbook player out there -- to my ears. And -- I have heard redbook CD's on the Meitner that never sounded right with any other player sound amazing on the Meitner --
it is just a great player and must be heard to be believed.