Jonesy09
04-05-2009, 11:31 PM
I recently added a new (to me) Musical Fidelity X DAC to one of the dedicated 2-channel systems and I have to say that I am impressed. I was not entirely convinced an outboard DAC would do much of anything. Boy was I wrong.
I basically took this step as a last resort. The system in question has turned out to be the most revelaing rig I've ever owned. The Infinity RSII's are incredibly accurate and made my toshiba SD-3950 sound like garbage. There was some real harshness going on there.
The first disc to get tested, when I was finally able to play with my new toy, was the first one I played on the RSII's. Jimi, Live at Winterland. The damn thing was shrill and hard to listen to. No longer. The detail and air is still there, but it is now enjoyable without the edge that was present.
After listening to some other discs it became apparent that there was also improvement in the soundstage. There used to be a tendancy on some discs to be either too separated or all piled up in the center. Also no longer. There is a nice even separation across and beyond the speakers, as well as some more depth.
There has also been the nice little added bonus of HDCD decoding. I never paid any attention to this format but did a little research after finding out the MF decoded it and discovered I actually had a HDCD disc. Ghost Reveries from Opeth has never sounded so good!
A little perspective.......I'm not claiming this is as big an improvement as say, moving up the food chain from an HTIB receiver to separates, or throwing a pile of money at great new speakers. I needed an accurate pair of speakers and quality line and power amplification (and those could be improved still) to hear the difference in the first place. But the improvement is definately apparent. :music:
I basically took this step as a last resort. The system in question has turned out to be the most revelaing rig I've ever owned. The Infinity RSII's are incredibly accurate and made my toshiba SD-3950 sound like garbage. There was some real harshness going on there.
The first disc to get tested, when I was finally able to play with my new toy, was the first one I played on the RSII's. Jimi, Live at Winterland. The damn thing was shrill and hard to listen to. No longer. The detail and air is still there, but it is now enjoyable without the edge that was present.
After listening to some other discs it became apparent that there was also improvement in the soundstage. There used to be a tendancy on some discs to be either too separated or all piled up in the center. Also no longer. There is a nice even separation across and beyond the speakers, as well as some more depth.
There has also been the nice little added bonus of HDCD decoding. I never paid any attention to this format but did a little research after finding out the MF decoded it and discovered I actually had a HDCD disc. Ghost Reveries from Opeth has never sounded so good!
A little perspective.......I'm not claiming this is as big an improvement as say, moving up the food chain from an HTIB receiver to separates, or throwing a pile of money at great new speakers. I needed an accurate pair of speakers and quality line and power amplification (and those could be improved still) to hear the difference in the first place. But the improvement is definately apparent. :music: