Good Cd Spinner

**kmckenn** · 15 March 2008, 13:20 Saturday

dinyaar,

I came to this forum, solely to report my peronal findings on a particular CD Player as a "transport".

As a reference... MY "system" is.... a Rotel 1056, twin pairs of Spectral MI-500's interconnects, connecting 2 B&K ST202's "Vertically" bi-amp'd through 2 pairs of MIT aVt-2 Speaker Cable's to a pair of Vandersteen 2C's. I have been "feeding" this system with a CHEAP Sony all in one Disc player ($100'ish)thru an MIT aVt-2? 3? digital coax. I finally deemed the Sony as an unworthy source for 2 channel, CD music. My homework and budget resolved to a DEMO Rega Apollo. I have a close friend here in town, and I "just" sent him an email about 20 min before coming to this forum. BELOW is that email, this information is yours to do with as you please! ;-)

------------------------------------

"Finally" got the Rega... After having been paralyzed by exactly what would come with the Rega as the interconnects supplied with it (I'd seen conflicting reviews, one saying, "they out performed 6 of the other interconnects I had tried with the Apollo", and others making Radio Shack BASIC(s) comparisons...). I came "so close" many a time to getting good interconnects to preceed the Rega's arrival, but decided to err on the conservative side, and take a look-see at what actually comes with it. Well, its here, the interconnect is here, and whether or not it is the EXACT interconnect that Rega actually supplies or not (MY Rega was a "DEMO", though visually brand new), the interconnects I got "look" like your basic $3.00 interconnects, or LESS. Knowing this was a possiblity at the onset, I'd resided to the fact that I could make my subjective opinions as to the Rega being utilized strictly as a TRANSPORT, directly displacing the cheap Sony DVD only as a digital transport.

So it is, the Rega only as a digital transport through the quite lower end MIT digital interconnect relying on the Rotel's D/A conversion. The results?

HOLY FRIGGIN' COW!??!?!!!!!!! "Some" CD's are what they are, and they are pieces of shit no matter what they are played through, PERIOD. "But" I would say somewhere near 50% of the CD's I've played are having 30-50% more "information" sent to the Rotel, so much more, that tracks that I thought I was fairly familiar with, I now spend 30-60 sec carefully listening to them with a partially puzzled look on my face, partly convinced that the Rega has its track sequence scrambled! On those 30-50% of the CD's/tracks that are like that, I'd say that there is "30-50%" "more information" being played which just makes an almost incomprehensible difference in the presentation of the music.

Overall, on "some" of the music, I'd call it a quantum leap improvement.

I'm now in a real pickle.... I still have that OPPOSITE bass problem that you have, that unaltered music more often than not has "3" Rotel digits too much bass.... which, if I use the analog outputs of the Rega, the analog signal would go straight thru the Rotel in "Bypass" mode leaving me with that issue (the "$3.00" interconnects do show me that is still the case). I've recently learned that in using the Rotel's D/A, there is no "additional circuitry" being introduced by leaning out the bass, so I can use it without fear of muttling up the rest of the signal.... "However", "IF" I'd ever NOT "Bypass", the Analog signal GETS DIGITIZED in the Rotel, tweaked in the digital circuitry, the D/A'd and back out.... I am now debating between the Rotel and Rega D/A's which the Rega's seem to be superior in all regards (on paper and review) and investing in $$$$$$$ interconnects only to be left with that friggin bass problem always nagging at me... "OR" investing 1/2 the $$$$$$$$ in one CLASSY digital coax, and let the Rotel do the D/A, being fed by a digital transport beyond description. The Rega's transport, Rotel's D/A's, with the econ MIT digi interconnect is SAH-WEEEET!!! Cymbals... now I actually get a phsysical "FEEL" for how hard the drummer SMACKED them, the "shattering glass" like shimmer.... each bristle of the wire can be heard slilding over them... harmonics of bells, the "strike", and near endless decay seem obvious.

I'd say the Rega as a TRANSPORT is as far beyond the Econo Sony mutli-disc player as the $100-$900 price "suggests" it is. And its a real pickle to be so happily listening to the Rotel's D/A, but at the same time "knowing" 1 of the 2 "best parts" of the Rega CD Player as a whole is figuratively "collecting dust".... HMMMMMmmmmmmmmm.....

Good Cd Spinner

Good Cd Spinner

Comment