Absolute best source?

[crispy98007]

The CD12, as my service advisor put it, and not to offend anyone, was a $500 CD player in a $19,500 box. My circa 1988 Philips LHH1000 was better. Nice piece, but a DV-50 crushes it, never mind one of Esoterics better units. Even though Esoteric is a really difficult company to deal with, their P-01/D-01/G-0s stack rules supreme, over anything EMM, DCS or anyone has ever built, and by a wide margin. Anyone who wishes to contest this come listen to my quarter million dollar stack sometime. Probably in the top 100 systems in the world. Reference quality everything, cost no object. 3 bedrooms in a 5 bedroom house are available. Rates on request and according to budget and service levels. Sound quality is paramount, full 32 bit 192 KHz resolution processing in house. Please contact Chris @ 314-814-4888

mfp@musicforpleasure.com

[crispy98007]

THe CDP-202 is nice but decidedly muted and lacking in resolution in the top octaves, and below 50Hz. Advice? I can step you to the next level...

C

[crispy98007]

D-01s are the best damn DACs in the world...especially when coupled with their Rubidium clock...

[kennyt]

Originally Posted by crispy98007

The CD12, as my service advisor put it, and not to offend anyone, was a $500 CD player in a $19,500 box. Nice piece, but a DV-50 crushes it, never mind one of Esoterics better units.

I own the DV-50s, nice player, but no where near as musical as the Linn, and especially not the CD12. I have heard the TOTL esoteric gear at shows but have always been under-impressed by it (probably didn't help that is was usually on an all Esoteric system and their speakers really didn't impress me).

Seems you opened shop shortly before I left St Louis or I'd come by and listen.

KT

[LinnGuy]

I would check out the Linn Klimax DS. It isn't a true CD player but it uses your own CDs ripped onto a network storage device. It is then streamed wirelessly to the "digital stream player". this is why the CD-12 is discontinued.

I personally haven't had the chance to audition one yet, but my Linn dealer/source heard it at the recent CES and said it blew him away. He said it made the CD-12 sound like a boom box. I know he was exaggerating to make his point, but it has to be really good. He said Linn has soved the problem of CDs by contolling the data stream of the data to the DAC. Because CDs rotate and are read only as the info passes by the laser, jitter was the problem. Not anymore, the player controls the data coming in. Also, the CD is read like 18X before the final is stored. I am no expert, but it makes sense to be.

Anyways, if anyone gets a chance to audition. Please post their impressions here. I would like to hear about it.

[LinnGuy]

Oh, I forgot to mention that the Klimax DS cost about $18K for the setup (Player, NSD and wireless controller)

However, they just came out with an Akurate DS version for about $8K.