Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

I guess is personal taste i found the Lampi GG too coloured for my taste but this noise issue was one of annoyance I encountered. I can see why many people love it, It is an excellent DAC and value. Being the nature of the GG Dac warm sound it can easily mate with SS Gear but will require careful matching with other Tube Gears. Probably due to too much warmth being added into the system and the sound signature becoming unbalanced. 
The GG dac does bring out the emotions of the music which is a big factor in my books. As too many high priced DAC these days sound Soulless, their is no life in their nothing that would stir the listeners emotions. 

I like the sound slightly warm lets say 1 or 2 notches above Neutral but not into Super Syrupy warm sound. I can reach this state easily by tuning the pre-amp and power amp tubes. So SS DACs have no issues on my system.
OTL amps are known for their transparency and smoothness.

I consider my current system a reference, It consist of PAD Cables all Neptune Liquid Series. Atma Sphere Nirvana Amplifier and Atma Sphere MP-1 Pre-amp with all the upgrades. This combination together with the Classic Audio Loudspeaker T1.5 Field Coils. The sound is so transparent it shows you the character of all the upstream electronics. Even minor changes to the system will shift its energy.

Regards to Cable Lifting, I have also experienced this to work wanders on some cables only. However I found No difference in sound with Purist Audio Designs when lifted or left on the floor. This would possibly be due to their damping techniques.

That Memory player looks interesting but the price tag does not :-)

Whilst I don’t have issues in spending money in Audio. I am now starting to realise not all expensive audio is worth going for.

The biggest area I would spend most of my budget on are Pre-amps, Power Amps and Speakers.

DAC, Transports, Servers all come last with cables.

Wow. That Lauder Memory Player sure is $$$$$!!!!!


I’ll email and see what his audition process is. Thanks for the info.

The Mini is a lot cheaper!!!

Dragon...I do use a SS Integrated amp. It's a NAD 375BEE modded with negative output impedence by  www.rowen.ch. This is to compensate for speaker line losses  and to ensure stability at peak power demand times.

My speakers are Heil AMT. Currently I have the Kitara running with the Syrinx. All Heils run perfectly in Phase, so they can run together. As the amp can handle bursts of up to 750wpc into 1 ohm, its a piece of cake to run these speakers in parallel.

Matt suggeted that these speakers may have a special synergy with Lampi Dacs and he may be right, though I think its more with the amp, to be honest. The amp also grips the woofers well and keeps themas tight as possible.

Speakers can be seen at www.precide.ch

Looks like we are morphing into phase two, while always keeping phase one alive.  Servers!  That little bug a boo.  Why have servers gone untreated if you would?  So many DAC makers are NOT in the server business. I am just waiting on the companies to make servers that connect to their DACS AND are synched to each other as that's where digital fails.  This is why we all are looking at other devices like SOTM, that is used in many DACS and or servers not named SOTM.  Why can't the clocks be synched?  Is there no universal deal for them all?  Timing is digital's major shortcoming.  Be it jitter or whatever, it's the timing that is what makes analog better to this day.  

I will watch this thread keep evolving as Matt goes through his audiophile struggles to get the best sound he can afford in his room.