Barry---I'm delighted that you agree with me, and for the same reasons.
I had just about given up on CDs, and still find very little of interest in available SACDs or DVD-As. If those formats are successful, the situation should change for the better, but for now I simply don't want to start duplicating what I presently have, either on LP or CD. There's not much attraction to me in old analog masters that have been trotted out to flesh out the SACD repertoire.
I happened on the Chord DAC64 purely by accident: I was in a local store that has a limited selection of CDs, and noticed issue 14 of HiFi+, a mag I'd never even heard of. Browsing through the mag, I noticed the review of the DAC64, and it appeared that here was something out of the ordinary, not the usual over-/up-sampling that is pretty common. (So I found not only a new piece of equipment, but another magazine as well. Beautifully presented, but full of typos, misspelled words, and grammatical errors, I'm sad to say.)
Later I found Delve Audio's ad on Audiogon, contacted Oliver, and bought a unit. Had to wait couple of weeks but it was certainly worth the wait. Oliver cautioned that I should play the unit constantly for at least three weeks for proper burn-in. He was right, and it just kept getting better and better. I've had the unit several months now and I swear it's still improving! I still love analog, and have no plans to abandon that format, but the Chord/CEC combo has convinced me that the depths of CD sound are just now being plumbed---in the same way that modern analog equipment is only now revealing the true quality of LPs.
Jim
I had just about given up on CDs, and still find very little of interest in available SACDs or DVD-As. If those formats are successful, the situation should change for the better, but for now I simply don't want to start duplicating what I presently have, either on LP or CD. There's not much attraction to me in old analog masters that have been trotted out to flesh out the SACD repertoire.
I happened on the Chord DAC64 purely by accident: I was in a local store that has a limited selection of CDs, and noticed issue 14 of HiFi+, a mag I'd never even heard of. Browsing through the mag, I noticed the review of the DAC64, and it appeared that here was something out of the ordinary, not the usual over-/up-sampling that is pretty common. (So I found not only a new piece of equipment, but another magazine as well. Beautifully presented, but full of typos, misspelled words, and grammatical errors, I'm sad to say.)
Later I found Delve Audio's ad on Audiogon, contacted Oliver, and bought a unit. Had to wait couple of weeks but it was certainly worth the wait. Oliver cautioned that I should play the unit constantly for at least three weeks for proper burn-in. He was right, and it just kept getting better and better. I've had the unit several months now and I swear it's still improving! I still love analog, and have no plans to abandon that format, but the Chord/CEC combo has convinced me that the depths of CD sound are just now being plumbed---in the same way that modern analog equipment is only now revealing the true quality of LPs.
Jim