everest-
2nd note;
Ayre does stock pile the drive/transport(s) for the DX-5 a/v engine.
Odd.
Happy Listening!
2nd note;
Ayre does stock pile the drive/transport(s) for the DX-5 a/v engine.
Odd.
Happy Listening!
New or Old CD Player?
No, I did not buy the review sample. I am still waiting on delivery (soon) (I am paying for a new machine, I want a new machine) I just took an old Technics DVD-A10 from the closet. It is the only working RCA digital out CD spinner I have working... I want one RCA and one Toslink drive.(I am wondering about the HDMI input.. Have to see if my DVD players HDMI can connect and play CDs? As I wrote, My main plan is to play other machines through the Marantz SA-10 most of the time. (Saving the Marantz drive for special occasions) that way I figure the player will be the last $$$$ disc player I will ever buy... and even if the disc spinner died after warranty and no parts.. The Marantz as DAC will still be good.) |
I've owned the Audio Research Reference 8 CD player for a couple weeks now. I figured I should at least give a few words on how I think it sounds. First I dropped it into my Big Rig to get a feel for how it performs. It is highly musical and does nothing offensive. The highs are a touch restrained over my beloved Berkeley Alpha Reference 2 DAC. There's not quite as much air or three-dimensionality as with the Berkeley. The mids are smooth and a bit more pronounced than the Berkeley. The biggest difference is in the bass, where the AR gets a little wooly and not as tightly pitch defined. So, as an absolute, it would not displace my Berkeley DAC. But if the Berkeley is a 10, I'd give the Reference 8 a solid, um, 8.5. But in my headphone rig, where if a recording is too hot on top, it'll blister your ear drums, the Ref 8 filters out a lot of that, resulting in a more enjoyable performance. I find it just about perfect for headphone listening. Musical and quite accurate. And a word on tube testing. I test ALL tubes with a Hickok 6000A tester before use. One of the triodes within one tube that came with the AR had a Significant loss in transconductance, about half output of the others. I had a spare 6h30 tube and used it. I don't know how much degradation in sound that one tube would have had. But it couldn't have possibly been positive. |
@trelja "I cannot recommend the Hegel Mohican... Like the rest of their players, it simply comes off as a rebadged Opera Audio Consonance CDP, typical of that outfit's efforts in the first 5 years of this millennium. At $5000, you're spending 2X - 5X for machines that proved historically unreliable and more than decade old technology." Based on the internals @twoleftears provided, I must reiterate my non-recommendation of the Hegel Mohican. Comparing the rear panels of the Consonance CD120 Balanced shows what appears the reintroduction of a $1000 machine, discontinued 12 years ago with a new faceplate, digital output, downgraded CD mechanism, and going completely against better and better digital becoming more and more affordable, a price tag 5X higher than it used to be http://www.canuckaudiomart.com/details/649267251-consonance-cd120-balanced/images/1202196/ https://www.stereolifemagazine.com/news/item/1235-hegel-mohican Personally, I find this dirty pool. And I'm going to call it out. I have a lot of experience with the original. In no way do I feel it's not an excellent sounding CD player. At its price point, it bettered most of its competitors. And for a few hundred dollars, I heartily recommend anyone to move forward, and would even feel happy to have one myself. But $5000 bought much better performance then (even within the Consonance lineup itself via the Reference and Droplet models) and even more so today. Indeed, Mohican seems the appropriate moniker |