One of my local dealers has a DCS stack but it’s hard to tell what is driving the performance. The Focal Utopia’s, the Audio Research Amps and Pre or the DCS.
1 Like
Weeelll…tough question. We live 1,000 miles apart, and I’ve only heard his system once. There were other issues going on with his system, IMO. It left me fairly cold, but I had nothing to compare it to. Except his vinyl rig, which was, “NOW we’re talkin’!”
So I wouldn’t count my impression.
The two dealers I go to for open day demos use Vivaldi or Rossini if they need a digital source. I first heard the Vivaldi in a very good room at a show in about 2013 and, frankly, with either of those the digital ceases to be the limiting factor, all that matters is what is in front of it. It is capable of producing sound so transparent, it’s quite scary.
The dCS Bridge is state of the art and very popular. Went round to a friend Saturday morning and he’s just bought one. It feeds a Devialet Expert Pro by AES/EBU, looked like he spent a few $$$ on the cable as well.
1 Like
I think you’d have to go full 7-figures before any piece of equipment would make Mark Farner sing in tune.
This definitely could be in the 2k range.
Also same opinion about Piega as you have.
Don’t let the cheap looks fool you. You save money with the folded medal and thin panels, but it’s what’s inside that matters. Neil Gader from TAS compared the Bartok with it’s cousin, the Puccini, a highly regarded SACD player, and the Bartok outperformed it with better dimensionality and energy in the soundstage and better natural decay of instruments. I wonder how it compares to a maxed out DS or to the upcoming TSS which is what I’m eyeing. With the TSS I can still use my DMP for SACD, but how to play SACD’s from Bartok? Playing DSD files, with the Bartok, would be limited to the USB input, which is not a very good input? My Aurender does not stream to the DAC for playback. For me TSS is the best way to go.