![]() In a sea of competition littered with ESS Sabre Reference DAC chips and other off-the-shelf chips from Texas Instruments (TI) and Asahi Kasei Microdevices (AKM), T+A has gone in a couple different directions. First and foremost, the MP 2000 R is a D/A converter. The “MP” in MP 2000 R stands for “multi-source player,” which is T+Aspeak for “streamer.” The feature list is long if not comprehensive. The front panel’s pushbuttons, aluminum navigation/control dial/button, display, the rear-panel connections, and the glass window in the top panel all seem to be of the same build quality as the PA 2000 R’s please see my review of the integrated amp for more about those details. The fit’n’finish is excellent - the entire case comprises panels of brushed aluminum held together by small, polished bolts. It’s the same size (18.1”W x 3.2”H x 15.8”D), and its 17.6 pounds are about right for a well-built piece of electronics. The MP 2000 R’s svelte and understatedly pretty appearance is largely identical to that of its sibling, the PA 2000 R integrated amplifier, which I recently reviewed. T+A Elektroakustik adopted a slightly different approach when they designed their MP 2000 R ($8500 USD) - the German company’s engineers focused not on the end customer, but on maximizing absolute performance.ĭiscrete PCM and DSD DACs, streamer, tuner, Internet Radio, CD player, Bluetooth There’s also my own favorite, the DAC-integrated amplifier, in which DAC, preamp, and power amp are all conveniently stuffed into a single compact case.Įach of these iterations of the original, straight-up USB DAC has been designed with a specific type of customer in mind. Other firms aimed for a younger, more tech-friendly audience, with DACs that include a built-in volume control and effectively served as digital DAC-preamps. Some companies opted to release DAC-preamplifiers that were equipped with analog inputs, clearly aimed at traditional audiophiles armed with a power amp or two and a mild sense of adventure. From there, however, the decision tree became a far murkier affair. At first, many opted for pure digital-to-analog converters, the only luxuries being an asynchronous USB input and balanced analog outputs. With the maturation of computer-based and streaming audio over the past half-decade, it’s been almost as interesting to watch the philosophical choices made by manufacturers as it has the rapid gains in sound quality and connectivity. 2018-2019 EISA Awards Video Introduction.At the very least it puts an end to the myth that a dedicated streamer is always better than a laptop playback. Obviously all these differences are very system dependent. The Node app is, unsurprisingly, much better than the Audirvana remote app, and it looks nicer on my rack than an old laptop, but I don’t mind stepping to the laptop and using the keyboard to play things. They both sound great, but I’ll keep with Audirvana since I think it sounds a bit more pleasing to my ears and it’s easier to navigate the HiRes files on my hard drive. I’d say that the optical connection distilled the differences between the two playback sources even more. The optical out sounded great and had a lot of rhythm to it. The coaxial sounded similar to USB, just with less top end. This was using basic cables.nothing fancy. I’d say if I just listened to Jazz, I’d give the edge to the Node, but for other types of music the Audirvana playback was richer and had more width and depth and was more extended on the top and bottom the frequency range. The Audirvana had a much larger soundstage with noticeably more air and deeper bass. The Bluesound had slightly crisper microdynamics, and with slightly darker backgrounds. I was struck that these streamers sounded different. I tested on Tidal only, on both MQA and non MQA tracks (which didn’t make much difference). So both systems are $10k-$20k.Īudirvana was set to not oversample or mess with the files at all. One is an all Linn Akurate system, the other is Schiit monoblocks -> TA Criterion Speakers. I listened both using headphones and using my two loudspeaker. The rest of the digital system = Audioquest Coffee USB Cable -> RME ADI 2 FS DAC. There’s a lot of debate on this topic, so I thought I’d post my personal experience comparing Tidal playback on a dedicated Mac laptop (one of the vintage ones with a DVD-Rom) with Audirvana to a Bluesound Node as a streaming source.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |