Themis;358913 Wrote: > Because it's a nice, smooth-sounding amp. :) I used to use the amp's dac > before I got the Italian one. The couple SB3/Denon through-coax, was > better than my old 640C CD player. But one day I found someone selling > the North Star for about 500€ and I... couldn't resist. I won't > go through the differences between the NS and the 3808, they are subtle > but quite obvious for "heavy" music parts (with plenty of instruments). > I've had plenty of hi-fi amps (and I still have a Marantz KI and a > Cyrus), but the Denon sounds more than decent. I tried, occasionally, > to upgrade the power-amp section, but none of the power amps that I > listened to (four), below the 1200€ price tag, managed to drive > my speakers better than the 3808. Even its phono section is sweet : so, > I stick with it, at the moment. ;) > > I know there are a lot of myths about A/V amps (I owned 4, the AVR-300 > being one of them), some say that A/V amps made by specialized hifi > firms are better sounding... well, I disagree. Today's A/V amps made by > "commercial" firms like Denon, Yamaha, H/K etc have decent transformers, > power sections, very good D/A converter implementations and so much > more. And mostly : they sound musical. > > I have plenty of friends (hifi vendors or enthusiasts) who claim the > contrary, but most of them never listened to a decent A/V amp in good > conditions. And I don't care enough about their beliefs to prove them > the contrary. :)
Assuming you don't have something drastically wrong the only differences are jitter. And Good DACs dejitter. I recorded some frequency sweeps, flac'd them, played them and recorded them off the digital tape out of my preamp (Meridian G68). They were bit for bit perfect with the SB3 or Transport over Toslink or RCA. The ONLY difference is jitter. Which the G68 removes by basically rebuffering the data stream and reclocking it. I do think the Transporter is worth it if you have the bucks for it's double display, build, looks and 24/96 abilities. It's a great unit and have no regrets spending the extra bucks on it. -- mswlogo XP > Cat5 > Transporter > SPDIF > Meridian G68 > DSP 6000, 5500HC, 33 XP > Cat5 > SB3 > SPDIF > Meridian DSP 5000 XP > Cat5 > SB3 > SPDIF > Meridian G91 > DSP 5000 'My Transporter Setup' (http://forums.slimdevices.com/showpost.php?p=350741&postcount=45) 'Hitch Hikers Guide to Meridian' (http://www.meridianunplugged.com) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ mswlogo's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9090 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=54947 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
