Mr Pants

I was at that gig with Darko when he heard the M51. The M51 is a nice dac - its certainly an over achiever. Same sort of world as the Metrum Octave and, to a lessor extent, the Mytek DSD. Great pre function. XLR shone. Would have to have its hat in the ring for best buy dac of the month up to 1.5-2k: well along with the Mytek. On functionality alone. Packaging was really schmick. Very sexy. I was the one liking the Teddy Pardo over the NAD with the CJ's - but then again I like the Bifrost over the Mytek for PCM. Having said that I'd happily live with any of the dacs except the Lenehan PDX - which made me want to jump off a tall building to make it stop after 5 minutes. It was much better with the Dart...but still left me fatigued after a few minutes. Of course some folk like leading edge put front and center and like tons of unrelenting upper mid and treble energy. Not sure about making a dac that runs 10db hotter than any other dac I've ever heard.....but it sure grabs your attention. For them (and I suspect you have to have lost most of your hearing to really dig the Lenehan - or have the most recessed speakers known to mankind) the PDX is heaven on a stick. All power to them. Resolution wise they were all variations on a theme and some way behind the uber converters. IMHO none of the dacs came close to the vinyl rig Victor has running. Pardo was the closest - and Victor's Opus 21. As always YMMV and system matching is important to personal preference. BTW those Carmels are not too shabby.

But thanks for responding Damien - it assumes your tags are in order...

Cheers Ted, Thanks for the heads up mate. I had no idea Audirvana + supported ISO playback until right now. Is this new or was I missing something 2-3 months ago? If so I feel abit of a fool. Still, nothing new there. In any event I now opened Audirvana+, it updated to 1.3 and, Bob's your uncle, instant ISO playback. That makes life simpler and a whole lot more attractive to me. Now if bloody Sony would get off their behinds and allow us to rip our SACD's without the stupid PS3 routine (and you have to be really dedicated for that nonsense) I'd be a happy little vegemite. I can see why the record companies would like DSD releases - money for old rope as fair as they are concerned - esp via direct sales. Problem is alot of their masters have been so bashed about in the PCM editing process (or just recorded really poorly to digital in the first place) you are still in the lottery when you dl a DSD file. Hopefully moving forward we will get great DSD recordings. Now what is this remote GUI of which you speak? Is there an app or do you need to use a VPN connection to get the GUI up. An Audirvana App would be nice. Are the USB drivers working for MAC yet? @ Michael - please don't think I'm criticising your product. I had one of the first ones in Oz coughing up $1.6k (which given the strength of our $ was a little rich) and have probably been responsible, in some measure, for the sale of 3 or 4 more after folk have asked me about it. People get nothing but glowing reports from me about the Mytek DSD 192. I especially liked it direct via XLR to my then speakers - a pair of active sealed 4 ways. I think it is a fabulous product. Truly ground breaking. But then again years ago I had the Lavry DA10 and your own Mytek 96 and loved both, in their own way. I'd like to see what you could do with a 3-5k rrp. Can I implore you to please go to direct sales: distributors just order take and ...ummm... do nothing. They are IMHO a complete waste of time. Its not like they demo or anything. If I had to criticise I'd take a poke at flakey drivers - never a good idea to release when your fware and drivers aren't kosher - the menu system and the lack of a remote - all of which didn't excite me too much. (And I know you can program another remote but - umm - I don't want to trawl through that process). Oh and the RCA out wasn't as good as the XLR via the analogue. But I guess the lower noise floor is an XLR thing. Anywho...thanks again for the heads up Ted. Made my day. Now if I could have an Audirvana App where I could browse by folder structure like MPD and mPad I would be a very happy little camper indeed. My tags are MIA and I've got no interest in trying to fix that...most of my collection is classical. I'm sure you know classical and tags are really hard work. As for ITunes - well it just bollocks my collection: I'm utterly iTunes averse ( I mean why don't they support all the codecs and oh I don't know, have a simple view by folder structure option...sigh). If ever there was a non intuitive computer program i-bloody-Tunes is it. Cheerio Andy PS Game of Thrones s2e1 tonight - yippee! pps - what is DoP? and what is a download wrapper? or do I not want to really know...

G'day Ted you are quite right mate - I did: that was the plan. Until it all got abit hard, I got abit busy and the delights of sitting back listening instead of fiddling with computers and DSD won over. You see, for me, unless I have a remote like mPad for eg my Auraliti where i can browse and play via folder and have all my music there ready to play, I can't really be bothered. I have over a TB of DSD ISO sitting here and have never really played it as, being MAC based, it meant I had to convert to DFF/DST before I could - which takes time. Then I have to cue it up and play. Which is a lot of effort particularity if I didn't care for the music in some way. No - I'd rather just spin the SACD itself and listen to the music than have my head in a computer. I initially got all excited by DSD and remain excited by the SQ of the best of the DSD recordings: until I worked out that its not the format as much as the recording: 16/44 or 24/88 versions created by saracon of the best DSD recordings sound just fine to me. I'll suppose I'll take notice again when a Mac player with a decent remote app can play ISO's directly. I have to say, at the moment, I am really enjoying my Bifrost. It isn't as good a dac as the Mytek in audiophile/studio terms but it sure is enjoyable. Amazing what $350 buys in terms of a dac. The Mytek really showed up bad recordings - which can be a great thing - but I like the Bifrost's ability to make everything sound good. Alot of my digital is abit average - but I like the recordings anyway. Re Meitner: In Oz we don't have local demo facilities for virtually any hi fi these days: which makes it very hard. Most of the time it is listening to a unit around at a mate's house who has taken the plunge and bought a high-end piece of gear. Meitner separates I have heard and liked. The Dac is 7k here which isn't chump change to me (especially since wholesale to the "dealer" is 40% of that price and all he does is take an order - no stock carried locally). Call me old fashioned but I'd like to hear any dac in my system before I spend 7k. Ditto PBD's. I've also held back as I'm interested in the new EAR dac that is due. And want to hear the AMR. In any event these days for me the focus is on the music and not so much the sound/gear that reproduces it - so I guess I'm not that much of an audiophile. Time is short and I have family and other priorities more important than chasing the "ultimate" in sound and then banging away on a forum about this or that. Truth be told if you gave me a Yamaha mini system and a bunch of good recordings on CD I'd be pretty happy. I would like to thank all you fella's though - without you pushing the development of this stuff it just wouldn't happen. The one thing I do know - nothing sounds like vinyl except vinyl. And 5k of vinyl rig sounds alot better than most digital playback systems I have heard. And is a alot less work. Cheers AS

I'm just following on from an earlier post...having a laugh...it is April Fools after all. Nothing wrong with the Mytek - great unit and DSD is terrific fun. But I'm lazy and the effort involved in DSD is all abit much for me atm ie ripping SACD via a PS3, transcoding to DFF from ISO etc. Much easier to just play a flac file. 24/96 sounds just fine to me. Anyway - a good recording is a good recording regardless of format. Cheers Pants

I sold my Mytek after 5 frustrating months of driver issues for MAC and dysfunctional DSD libraries ha!

And that really is my point. What, therefore, is the purpose of DSD? Can DSD sound fundamentally better than PCM when it has been derived from a PCM master? I don't see why it should. DSD is entirely dependant on source. If its PCM source then while sounding different to PCM converters (IMHO) it isn't any better or worse. Just slightly different. I find the real difference is listening to DSD recorded material, of which there is precious little available - unless you record you own off e.g. vinyl with a e.g. Korg. That does have advantage. I recently read that "the recording studios" (as if they all acted in any sort of concerted manner) have decided to transfer all of their analog tapes into DSD format for archival purposes. errr...that might have be me...if it was I was talking complete crap. I withdraw the comment. Linn for one are PCM through and through - and are doing a great job of it.

Everyone may think me a heretic...but DSD is only as good as where it comes from - I can appreciate and hear the difference between a DSD version and 24/192 cpm version only if the recording is up to it in the first place. Of course a great recording is a great recording ....and will sound fabulous on PCM. Besides there is very little DSD out there atm: 90 % of my collection is PCM and most of that RBCD. The 10% that is DSD is a labour intensive process. But boy it sounds great. The Mytek is a very good well featured dac. But it is not an uber converter like the BADA, Emm Labs etc. Then again its $1500. My view is simple - if you like the Linn get one. You can't go wrong with that either. Cheers Andy

You really can't go wrong. Excellent dac all around and one of handful of companies supporting DSD. Of course you actually need the DSD files in the first place... Linn also make a great product - but very different to the Mytek. Happy hi fi.

Native DSD or PCM it all rather depends where it all comes from and the quality of recording the first place. Having said that I'm upgrading from a Mytek to a PBD MPD3.

1. A iPad remote app. 2. View & select by Folder Structure. Give me Mpad for AP+ and I'm in heaven...

Quick question does the MPD3 and/or Meitner Dac require drivers for async USB? I seem to recall Meitner is plug and play ie driverless - and so can be used with Linux: my auraliti? I use a MBP for DSD playback but 90% of my listening is via the Linux Auraliti. What about the MPD3? Cheers Andrew

Thanks Jon I'm sure what you say and hear is 100% accurate: don't doubt you for a second. I'm sure its just my dodgy ears and advanced years that means I can't really hear all that much difference. Or maybe if I can it doesn't bother me - I'm no musician or any such and don't get that carried away with it all. I'll happily listen to MOG streaming if I like the music. Certainly, given the choice, I buy the highest rez I can. And play back native DFF when I can. Does it make any difference? - buggered if I know - but it seems to satisfy the compulsive obsessive gene: ha!

Here is a post I just made over on the Mytek thread - really has equally validity here. "Last night I popped over to a mate's house and plugged the Mytek into his system - which is very similar to mine. What was really interesting to me was ABing 16/44 converted from DFF file via Saracon (3db gain, Pwr3 setting). The differences were very small through the Mytek, XLR direct to my friends SGR active speakers. Which is to say I thought I could pick the difference reliably but my friend wasn't convinced. And if you have to strain to hear a difference there probably isn't one... It might have been my psycho acoustics going on but the real point to the story is the differences between the formats, if they exist, are very small. It wasn't a "OMG that's amazing" - more like "I think somethings different - abit toppier, abit more bass...etc". So what I deduce from all this is that what really matters is the source material in the first place. Not whether its 1/352 DFF or 16/44 red book. What I also posit is that perhaps more care is taken with SACD than with standard red book - dunno. Or alot is lost in the physical "pressing" process once the Master is sent across from the recording engineer. A friend just told me they "press" CD's in 5-6 seconds for 500-700Mb of data. We have all played this game long enough to know bits ain't bits. I also came away with the distinct impression of what a fine dac this is - period. It was also a/bed up against a circa $4-5k custom built 1541 double crown dac fed via i2s and, obviously while different, was not embarrassed. The 1541 was of course more organic with red book (it should be - it had tubes everywhere) but the Mytek wasn't hard sounding at all. And much more transparent when feed to the actives via XLR. The Mytek also seems to continue to improve as time goes on - although that may be my ears adjusting as well. We plan on converting a bunch of test files and doing a blind test - not to prove anything in particular - just to see if in our respective systems we can really pick a difference. Anyone else done an apples with apples (ie same source material converted via eg Saracon via eg FW out of a MBP?) comparo?" Now interestingly I also did a comparo between a 24/192 Linn download (excellent btw - love Linn stuff) and a 16/44 & 24/88 conversion of the same file (again Saracon +0db, Pwr3) and I cannot discern any real difference between the files - they all sound superb via async FW and I am confident in a blind test I would not be able to pick which was which. So perhaps not the container so much but what is put into it and how?? Just a thought.

Last night I popped over to a mate's house and plugged the Mytek into his system - which is very similar to mine. What was really interesting to me was ABing 16/44 converted from DFF file via Saracon (3db gain, Pwr3 setting). The differences were very small through the Mytek, XLR direct to the SGR active speakers. Which is to say I thought I could pick the difference reliably but my friend wasn't convinced. And if you have to strain to hear a difference there probably isn't one... It might have been my psycho acoustics going on but the real point to the story is the differences between the formats, if they exist, are very small. It wasn't a "OMG that's amazing" - more like "I think somethings different - abit toppier, abit more bass...etc". So what I deduce from all this is that what really matters is the source material in the first place. Not whether its 1/352 DFF or 16/44 red book. What I also posit is that perhaps more care is taken with SACD than with standard red book - dunno. Or alot is lost in the "pressing" process once the Master is sent across from the recording engineer. A friend just told me they "press" CD's in 5-6 seconds for 500-700Mb of data. We have all played this game long enough to know bits ain't bits. I also came away with the distinct impression of what a fine dac this is - period. It was also a/bed up against a circa $4-5k custom built 1541 double crown dac fed via i2s and, obviously while different, was not embarrassed. The 1541 was of course more organic with red book (it should be - it had tubes everywhere) but the Mytek wasn't hard sounding at all. And much more transparent when feed to the actives via XLR. The Mytek also seems to continue to improve as time goes on - although that may be my ears adjusting as well. We plan on converting a bunch of test files and doing a blind test - not to prove anything in particular - just to see if in our respective systems we can really pick a difference. Anyone else done an apples with apples (ie same source material via eg FW out of a MBP?) comparo? @ fvert -almost certainly you have a sync issue through having the wrong setting upon selection of source: you may need to select your source eg AES - then press the control knob in again, rotate until you get "PL Lock".After that you can play around with upsampling if you want. But it needs to sync in the first place.