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digital recommendations for top end transport/cd/pre

Posted by yellowwwwducky (A) on May 9, 2005 at 08:02:24

Hello all,

My Levinson 39 has basically died. I took it for repair but the 'new board' put in turned out to suffer the same fate as the old board 3 months later - a dc offset problem on the left channel. Given the player is 8 years old, I just won't pay another 1000 bucks to fix it given I think it is just past due now.

So I am looking for a new front end. My setup was very minimal - a Levinson 39 driving a Jeff Rowland 8t power amp with battery power supply onto Avalon Radian speakers. It was heaven and simple. The 39 also had a digital in put allowing me to put my Pioneer dvd player into that to have 2 channel 44.1k stereo while watching movies.

So now that that 39 is going to be out (or in a second system down the line for another room), I am looking for something than can do what the old one did - play cds very well (including hdcd encoded) as well as do the 2 channel processing from my dvd (ie I need at least 1 digital input or toslink flavor ideally). If it could read sacd down the road on transport side through upgrade or right off the top, ok (although I have yet to hear recommendations on 'combo' players being that good compared to single purpose ones) or if the d2a could now or later accomodate sacd processing from some other transport that would be nice as well. To make it incrementally more challenging - a bypass on the processor output to allow an external multichannel processor to take over and drive the 2 big speakers should I ever do surround would be nice as well. This last option definitely helps with the preamp I would lean to as it has that bypass feature.

I was thinking of splitting out all the boxes this time around - ie have a transport, a d2a and a preamp. Should I decide to go this route I would most likely get the Jeff Rowland Synergy 2i given my experience with their products and its ability to have the bypass no problem (and I want to keep them in business should I ever need anything for my 8t).

So what is your ideal recommendations now on transport+d2a (assuming I got a JR 2i as preamp) OR transport+d2a (in one box or seperates) with very good d2a volume control OR for rounding out all the options that may work an all in one cd player.

The names I have come across thus far have included:

Weiss Jason transport + Weiss Medea d2a
(the company has been very responsive to questions, always a good sign, although I am concerned about the ability of these units on the upgrade front down the road)

Burmester Top Line 001 cd player
(this is the all in one box route with digital inputs and volume control)

Burmester Reference 969+970
(this one I think could blow the budget)

Burmester Top Line 979+980
(I heard this is being discontinued - not giving me optimism on Burmester's 'upgradeability' willingness on the part of the company)

Theta Gen VIII
(as a d2a/preamp combo but not sure on transport)

Boulder 1012
(digital processor and preamp once again not sure on transport)

and then have looked at bit at a bunch of names ranging from Gryphon to Metronome to Meridian to DCS (these are so hideously ugly I hate to even look at them let alone thing of buying them...sorry, audiophile that also would like reasonable looking) to Spectral and then small boutique manufacturers I have never heard of (my concern with those being who will be around to service/upgrade).

So there you have it. I figure 25,000 usd is about as much as I could ever come up with....or don't tell my wife and 25,000 first and then maybe 5,000 down the road (a few years) if need be.

Thanks for any opinions on these combos or others.

Regards,

yellowwwwducky

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