Blacksabbath25 said:
Right today I went to richer sounds with my abrahamsen amp and marantz sacd 8005 player and had a demo with a audio lab M-Dac+ I thought I would try out this dac as from older posts on this thread some people like mark thought it might be a CD player problem that maybe I needed a top CD player to make the most out of what I got . To be honest I thought I would not hear much of a difference in any detail from using the m-dac + as this dac cost £800 and not been out long but the older model won a lot of awards
right the demo they hooked up my abrahamsen and marantz with a pair of Dali opticon 6s what I used to have so I knew what they would sound like we used XLR leads as well as RCA leads I had taken some CDs with me so nothing was new to me only the new dac for a start I could not tell the difference between the new sound and the old sound then switching to marantz dac sound until we switched to the balanced inputs that was slightly louder so I knew that XLR is normally slightly louder so I turned down the volume a little bit so it matched the RCA input volume this sorted that out I kept switching back and then understood that the new dac sounded better on the XLR inputs the dac was more detail and more open more headroom but still not night and day better my wife thought it sounded more detailed so I thought I would take it home on a home demo to see if it sounds different at home and it does I do like it more natural more involving more head room and good detail .
i am still not 100% sure if I am doing the right thing I have 13 days before I have to take it back but would like people's thoughts on whether this is the way to go because £800 is a lot of money on a pointless upgrade but to me it sounds better so just goes to show buying a new amp would have been pointless as the abrahamsen is very capable amp and the chaps in the shop were impressed by the abrahamsen amp so if I did keep this dac I would use the marantz as a transport as its well built.
I'm borrowing a Chord Hugo TT the week after next but it is really expensive & TBH, I'm not convinced my current system justifies £3k on a DAC. My M-DAC is very, very good but reviews suggest the M-DAC+ is better & good value. The + version is has got more inputs than the Chord but is considered to be a little behind the standard Hugo let alone the TT.i If I come to my senses, I'll go for the +
The designer of the original M-DAC is a big fan of XLRs over RCA. My system is fully balanced from DAC to the power amp's input stages - I have not reverted back to RCAs to see if there's a reduction in SQ - but they are certainly physically very superior.