Audio lab mdac and marantz advice

stpierre76

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Mar 14, 2010
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Hi all,

I just bought a audioab mdac and need to now get a amp.
There is a demo of marantz pm7004 that I could get for a good price, but only one left,so I ve got to be quick.
On the other side there s the current marantz pm7025 2 channel amp also for the same price.
I am wondering if I d get better result going with the pm 7004 and mdac or get the power amp 7025 and use the mdac as a Pre/dac combo.
I can not audition them together as not the same dealer and won t get my mdac until next week, but I need to get either amp tomorrows not to miss out.
Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Speakers are focal 826 chorus
Source is Mac mini via jriver all in flac files.
Regards
 

matt49

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Apr 7, 2013
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stpierre76 said:
Hi all, I just bought a audioab mdac and need to now get a amp. There is a demo of marantz pm7004 that I could get for a good price, but only one left,so I ve got to be quick. On the other side there s the current marantz pm7025 2 channel amp also for the same price. I am wondering if I d get better result going with the pm 7004 and mdac or get the power amp 7025 and use the mdac as a Pre/dac combo. I can not audition them together as not the same dealer and won t get my mdac until next week, but I need to get either amp tomorrows not to miss out. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Speakers are focal 826 chorus Source is Mac mini via jriver all in flac files. Regards

Since you already have a perfectly decent preamp in the M-DAC, it would make better financial sense to devote your whole budget to a power amp, unless, that is, you need analogue inputs in the preamp, which the M-DAC doesn't have.
 

john dolan

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I find my M-dac sounds best when run full volume through my passive preamp.

My system has lots of gain so when I run M-dac direct the M-dac onboard volume is operating at the 60db range on the display which means because it is a digital volume control the m-dac is running low resolution so when I run it through my passive preamp at full volume I then get full resolution.

My passive preamp is very transparent a AS Passion

http://www.audiosynthesis.co.uk/passion.htm

and im using the direct input which bypasses the selector switch and if you scroll down to the bottom of my link you can see the volume switch quality is top notch and the sound from the M-dac will pass through it with little loss.

If the preamp is not transparent then any gains from funning the M-dac full volume would be lost and M-dac direct would give the best sound imo.
 

stpierre76

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Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies and advice.
I should have asked the dealer at time of purchase and also tried mdac/power amp vs integrated/mdac, but now he s away for the rest of the week and can t ask him any advice. I would have love to take the mdac with me to audition the amps,but won the there before next week.

I wasn t sure if the mdac trumped resolution at low volume.my understanding was that it did not affect resolution even at low volume. I read that this was the preferred way from audio lab to connect the mdac, straight into power amp.
I will try and browse the net for as many reviews about the mdac and hopefully it will enlighten me on the topic of using the mdac as dac/Pre.

Apart from that, marantz pm7004 vs pm7025, same price, different wattage and obviously power amp vs integrated.
On paper, it would make sense to assume that the pm7025 is superior to a pm7004 as for the same price you don t get the Pre stage and inputs found on 7004, but in the real world, specs don t mean much to me.
So anybody got any advice on which amps is ( don t want to use the word better as quite subjective) more musical, punchy and clean...

Kind regards
Jean
 

john dolan

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Digital volume controls throw away resolution at low settings its how they work.

The M-dac John Westlake is working on a new power amp under his one brand Westlake and this amp when connected to a M-dac will auto adjust its own input sensitivity so that the m-dac will always be running at optimun volume setting.

My system has lots of gain so when i use the m-dac direct into my mono blocks i have the volume set very low on the M-dac so i do get a improved sound when i run it full volume through my passive but in most cases systems will have less gain than mine and will get better sound with M-dac direct into the power amps.
 

TweekSpeek

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Hey Jean,

From the looks of it you're well on your way to some good times ahead (musically anyways...:grin:)....I also own the M-DAC and the Focals 826. I happen to run my M-DAC through an analog preamp not so much for any sound preference, but for flexibility. I happen to watch TV on my setup and also have a Marantz DVD/SACD player - of which I watch DVDs and play SACDs through. Since the Audiolab isn't capable of decoding the various surround codecs or SACD (DSD), I retained the analog preamp in my system. You'll probably want to factor long-range considerations and system usage to steer your decision.

Happy Listening! :cheers:
 

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