drewster

Hi Vade You are correct in your assumption that the original recording was not the higher sample rate but listening through Channel D’s Pure Music you can up sample a 24/96 track to the higher rates with great success. I am currently looking in to upgrading my speakers and I am hoping to really hear what the rest of the system is capable of, I will keep you guys informed. All the best Drew

I have been in the market for a new Dac to replace my C/A Dac Magic since March this year and over the last 3 months or so I have done my best to listen to as many as I can, both within my own system and in shops around the country, I am just putting down the findings I made that bought me to what I believe to be one of the best (For sensible money) Dac currently available in the UK today, The m2 Tech Young Dac. In March I decided to take a different route with my HiFi and looking in to using my Mac Pro Desk Top as my source and get rid of some boxes. I went out and bought a C/A Dac Magic which for the money has been great with lots of inputs and pretty good sound quality and Pure Music interface. But as my system has changed I have started to notice its short comings so the decision was made to upgrade. After much reading and surfing of the net I narrowed it down to the Rega Dac and the Musical Fidelity M1 Dac with a V-Link, so I visited my local HiFi shop and arranged a demo of both back to back. The first thing I noticed about both was the build quality was very high; the Rega in particular was built like a small silver tank. I began listening to the Rega using my standard demo play list, the one thing I was slightly concerned with was the fact the shop insisted in using Naim! I must admit I was very impressed with the sound it produced very open midband, smooth top end and very tight punchy bass, all in all for the money very good indeed, when it came to the M/F M1 Dac it was more of the same albeit with a slightly more relaxed presentation but none the less very good. I made to decision to borrow the Rega Dac to listen to at home. All became clear why they wanted to use Naim gear for the demo. After plugging it all in to my Meridian Equipment and leaving it over night to warm up, I started playing the same demo play list, and instantly thought there was something wrong, it sounded as if there was a duvet hanging over the speakers, and this was compared to the Dac Magic I had been using the night before using the same cables. After playing with the various (Useless/Unnecessary) Filters, I decided the reason they used Naim is that it has so little in the way of dynamics and punch it needed to Naim to make up for it, so it went back I the box and back to the shop. After the Rega debacle I started to think how much would I have to spend to get something “much” better than the Dac Magic, so away I went and borrowed a friends Naim Dac while he was on holiday for couple of weeks, Oh dear this answered my question, I was going to have to spend £2100.00. The best was to describe how much better the Naim is, is visually, it is like looking at a photo of a valley in the Lake District taken on a Mobile photo camera, and then driving to the valley and seeing it in front of you, that is how big the difference is. I am not going to go in to the finer points of the music as I will save that for the Young but it is safe to say my credit card was going to take a beating. Just before I purchased to Naim I joined another American site for people that were interested in becoming “Computer Audiophiles” and they had reviewed the Bel Canto Dac 1.5e very well as did a lot of there readers so I thought for £1400.00 I would give it a demo. This lasted 9 minutes before boxing it up. Enough said. Then reading on this site there seemed to be a lot of fuss about this Young Dac that no seemed to be able to get hold of but was supposed to be very good and significantly cheaper than is competitors in sound quality, so I figured I needed to hear it. I contacted Purite Audio on the Wednesday and spoke to a chap call Keith, who it must be said is one of the nicest most knowledgeable people I have come across in my years of working and consuming with in HiFi industry. I asked him about the illusive m2 Tech Young Dac and he told me he had just taken delivery of a batch and had one spare that he could send me, Wow this was the best customer service I had had in ages and ever from the HiFi trade, it arrived on the Friday. That night I plugged it all in and went to the pub. Saturday morning I pushed play on my play list and waiting to see what would happen. The first thing I noticed was that 384 popped up on the display? It was telling me it was sampling 384 kHz via USB. I don’t know of any other Dac in this price range that goes any where near that. The sound that came from it out of the box was the real surprise it from cold was equal to the Naim or so I thought so I plugged the Naim back in via optical as it doesn’t have the rear USB and did some A>B comparisons to my horror/delight the Young was every bit a detailed but the top end was smoother and the mid/bass had more drive and punch to it the over all sound was much easier to listen to over longer periods. I couldn’t believe it so I got the owner of the Naim to have a blind listen to it when he came round to pick his Dac up, on almost every track we listened to he picked out the Young, picking the same issues as me each time i.e. transparency, timing, focus pretty much across the board the Young betters the Naim and not by a small amount! In summery if you take in to account the Young retails in Europe for 1100 Euros, and you can call Keith at Purite Audio and get one for £750.00 delivered within 48 hours, the build quality is not that of the Rega or Naim but it is very well made and really looks the part IMO, and the sound quality is quite frankly astonishing irrelevant of price this has to be one of the best Dacs on the market. Add to this when the additional power supply is released in the coming months to sound can only improve. I called Keith and told him what I thought and he just said we have had to drop the mid priced Weiss Dac at £2500.00 is they could find any noticeable difference between it and the Young, he then went on to offer me the loan of a Weiss DAC202 at £4500.00 but said the Young is that good you would have to have a very very high end system to hear any really quality improvement. All in all The m2 Tech Young Dac will be spending quite some time in my system even as I up grade around it I really can’t see where I could go to improve this Dac. I hope this helps anyone looking at spending £750.00+ on a Dac you really need to listen to this. All the best Drew

I am in the market for an upgrade for my Cambridge Audio Dac Magic 2, I have been looking At The Rega dac, and the M/F M1 Dac, But i am wondering if any one has any views on the Bel Canto Dac 1.5 is it going to be a massive amount better than the other 2, the reason i ask is i can go and listen to the others(and have) and i must admit i was not blown away by the improvment over the C/A Dac Magic. What do you guys think? All the best Drew