The Best Digital, the Most Respected Digital
We’ve been wondering about just who would be on a list of the top contenders for the Champion of the World in several categories of high-end audio equipment.
Contenders are either the products we know to be great and hearing them several times actually *sound* great, those that we suspect to be great, and those that are generally considered to be great.
Note that some of this has to do with fashion, and some has to do with popularity, and some to do with actual performance.
To put it simply, if you won the lottery today – what would you want to audition tomorrow?
CD Players:
Audio Note CDT-5 and Fifth Element (sound)
Audio Note CDT-4 and DAC 5 Signature (sound)
Emm Labs XDS1 (rep, sound)
Esoteric stack and top end players (rep,popular)
DCS stack (rep)
Audio Aero LaSource (sound,popular)
———–
Others? Anybody? Remember they have to be in the ultra high-end and be recognized as having a great reputation, great sound, or is just plain popular by at least some percentage of audiophiles.
There are a TON of digital out there – but in general most people either use these players, or their little brothers of the same brand.
If you want to nominate others, please leave a comment!
MSB DAC IV Diamond (Sound)
Dear Mike
from measurement for macro linearity it seems weiss medea is perfect , it’s not musical but so accurate in frequency domain.
for micro linearity Audio Note should be perfect with no digital processing and in players with digital processing it seems Play back Design MDS5 shoud be better than other in micro.
excuse me, i correct
Play back Design MPS-5