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RE: Marantz v. other non-ASRC DAC's

Posted by PS Yeo (A) on December 11, 2007 at 20:31:25

In Reply to: Marantz v. other non-ASRC DAC's posted by Bob Stern on December 10, 2007 at 21:07:53:

Hi Bob,

Currently the Marantz SA11S1 is deployed as a RBCD Transport / SACD player in my modest setup.

Due to lack of equipment rack space, my trusty modified Theta Basic II CD Transport (Philips CDM9 Pro) currently is in storage. My modified Theta Gen V HDCD Balanced processor is only use for RBCD / HDCD playback. In absolute term for RBCD playback performance, the SA11S1 is no match compare with the modified Theta Basic II/ Gen V Combo even they are 12 years old products. However the old faithful Theta combo cannot match the full Glory of the SACD playback on the SA11S1 with certain excellence SACDs.

I was thinking along the line to acquire a nice DAC without ASRC to match the RBCD performance to the SACD level from SA11S1. I do understand the cost of these nice DACs and can only afford them used, therefore I keep an eyes in the local used market. I do not expect them to appear any time soon as the local used market is very small and I was waited for more than a year without success.
BTW the local importer for Theta do not have the latest Gen 8 DAC so can't comment on the sound quality. I do recall Stereophile have a nice review on the Gen 8 Theta and please check it out.

I am currently planning another different approach, ie, to improve the RBCD performance on the SA11S1 so that they are equal / better than my old Theta combo. This is necessary as the Theta is getting towards end of its service life and I may not be able to find a good used DAC without ASRC at the affordable price range. I've planned several stages of modification plans and will commence the 1st stage during the X'mas holidays. Will keep the inmates posted on the progress.

Regards
Max Yeo PS

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