Digital Drive

Posted by tvr2500m (A) on April 26, 2007 at 17:37:14

In Reply to: How's the Dialogue II? Anyone heard it? posted by goks on April 22, 2007 at 16:00:36:

First DAC? The Dialogue may be my LAST DAC ;) After diggin' deep into the DAC thing, rolling through a dozen or two players, DACs, jitter filters, cheap to expensive, I actually like the Kusunoki-inspired, Philips TDA1543-based, 16-bit, non-os, filterless Dialogue II the best of anything I've listened to. Weighing in the price and it really is a nice value, me thinks. I have the Dialogue version that immediately preceded the most current version - 2.1 vs 2.2, or something like that.

It's not the most extended or detailed DAC, but the soundstage and tonal character and density are very nice. The DAC sounds "natural", "organic", "analog" (to use those well-worn descriptors). The DAC has a very healthy dose of palpability. It breathes.

I'd like to try the Renaissance, which as mentioned, is a tube-buffered version of the Dialogue. The Paradisea is a Philips TDA1545-based DAC. I found my way to the Dialogue because I wanted to try a TDA1543 DAC, but I'm curious about the Paradisea, too.

I heard very good things about the Zhaolu D 2.5 from diykits (www.diykits.com.hk/), and you might want to consider Dusty Vawter's latest DAC, the Channel Islands Audio VDA-2.

- SJ

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