Beresford CAD or Marantz cd6004????

[jimmylee73]

Hi,

I currently use Airport Express from Mac to send Apple lossless files to Roksan Kandy amp.

Can anyony offer insight as to which would provide better sound quality - Beresford Caiman (Gatorized) Dac or new Marantz cd6004?

I believe that the standalone DAC should offer more performance over the CDP. Optical between AE and Dac, Coax from Dac to amp.

Any help/opinions would be very much appreciated.

 

[neilmistry]

I recently bought a Caiman for use with my Squeezebox and I'm very happy with it. I primarily use if for headphone listening - the built-in headphone amp was a very nice feature to have.

 

[basshound]

I would also say the Beresford would be the better option assuming you are streaming everything and have no need of a dedicated cd player. As for connections,optical fron AE to Dac is Ok but you would use the analogue output on the Dac to the amp using a standard pair of stereo inters. The Beresford has fixed and variable outputs,the variable allow you to use the Beresford as a pre-amp and the Kandy just for power. I had this setup fairly recently (using a Beresford 7520 in pre-amp mode) with a Roksan K2 integrated and noticed a good improvement over just using the Beresford as a Dac.

 

[jimmylee73]

Thanks Neil, Bass

That's basically the sort of insight/experience/opinion that I was hoping for.

I have a lot of cd's but like the idea of going totally digital.

From what I've read so far, the conensus seems to be that a good £200 ish Dac should be the equally of a good budget cdp in terms of quality and ability.

Cheers,

Jamie

 

[basshound]

I have a lot of cd's but like the idea of going totally digital.

Opinions differ on the forum but I`ve had a digital/streaming set-up of one sort or another for about the last 2 years and don`t ever see me going back to a cd based system. It`s a bit daunting at first having to rip all your cd`s but it only has to be done once (rip in lossless and convert to other formats as needed),make regular backups and backups of the backups!

The ability to have all your music easily accessable at your fingertips is great and as long as the setup of the media software is right, will sound every bit as good and IMO better than a compareably priced cd system.