Cary 306 SACD Professional

Arthursmuck,
The Cary and the APL are both great machines.
The Cary has a deeper further back soundstage, the APL has a more up front presentation.
I also think the Cary has better frequency extremes.

Oldvinyl, that is fantastic!
As good as the 306 SACD sounds, and you say the Pro has that much more improvement, it must be the best sounding unit out there! Care to trade?

03-24-08: Ozzy
Arthursmuck,
The Cary and the APL are both great machines.
The Cary has a deeper further back soundstage, the APL has a more up front presentation.
I also think the Cary has better frequency extremes.

I bought Ozzy's APL Denon 3910, and I previously owned an APL Denon 3910. My previous APL sounded considerably more open, extended and life-like than Ozzy's APL.

As it turns out, Ozzy's APL Denon 3910 was a first iteration player, and my previous APL Denon 3910 was a newer version (newer DACs, transformers, and upsampler).

My Modwright Sony 999ES is more extended than the APL Denon 3910 purchased from Ozzy, which is now being updated by Alex with new DACs, transformers and the new tubed output stage developed for the APL NWO. I expect the changes will have a profound effect on the player's performance.

The bottom line is that there are many iterations of the APL Denon 3910 players, and each version sounds somewhat different. I was surprised at how Ozzy's APL performed because it was nothing like the APL I remembered. It's now clear to me that the differences between APL versions can be more substantial than I realized.

Therefore, one should consider the various APL iterations when reading comparisons between APL Denon 3910 players and other brands/models.

Tvad, Not sure if what you just posted is true. I am not really sure of the version I had (there were so many versions), but I had it upgraded 3 times.
One of the last upgrades was well after you had sold yours, because I remember reading that you said yours was kinda of thin sounding when played straight to an Amp without a Preamp.

Ozzy, what I was posted is what I was told by Alex after he examined your player.

Tvad, My take on the 2 players as I owned them were they had different presentations, but both were very good.
There is no doubt that his new 32 bit versions will be an improvement.