Hi, first post on here so hello to you all, hope you’re having a decent Xmas despite the current situation. I’m looking for a bit of advice and info. I have a home loan over the hols of a Bartok, the none headphone model. Arrived yesterday by DPD, guess giving all the delivery drivers Xmas boxes paid off
I have a nice vinyl setup, do any of you use an ADC to feed the Bartok and remove the need for a Pre Amp? If so what do you use hardware/cabling wise?
I have initially set things up as simply as possible Bartok to Power Amps to Speakers until I get it warmed up and used to the interface/options. Have updated to latest firmware and playing from ROON. First Head to Head will be against bare Vega G2 this morning.
If you use a Pre Amp, what models are in favour? I only need 2 XLR in but 3 would be nice.
Phono stage - Luxman EQ-500 XLR out (can use RCA)
Streamer - Auralic Aries G2/Vega G2/Leo GX
Pre/DSP - Lyngdorf TDAI-3400
Power - Bel Canto Ref 600M x 2
Spkrs - Martin Logan ESL11a
I can’t answer your other questions, only to say that I demoed the Vega G2 against the dCS Network Bridge. The Network Bridge blew the Vega G2 clean out of the water. Like night and day.
I finally settled for the Bartók, without the headphone amp. Connected to a Naim NAC 282 Preamp. Absolutely stunning sound!..Saving for the ‘Clock’.
I very rarely experience the type of black and white differences I read about, especially with digital replay, I find speakers and cartridges much easier to choose quickly, digital it’s normally more of a “feeling” usually.
Today I compared the Vega G2 to the Bartok both running as Pre/DACs and using ROON to upsample/remodulate to the max allowed in each case, DSD128 for Bartok and DSD512 for the Vega G2.
Tomorrow I’ll compare the Bartok to Aries+Vega using LLink and then drop in the Leo clock. My friend has a high end Auralic/MBL system and we both agreed Aries improves the Vega and the clock improves DSD.
Thanks for the post, I had a few years climbing the Naim ladder up to a 14 box 500 system before moving away. The sweet spot amp wise for me was the 282/PSUs/300.
From what I have read Bridge + Bartok brings nothing to the party and you are better going Bartok then Rossini Clock unless you have the wedge to go Rossini DAC from the get go.
Hopefully a few more guys will chime in, I have the Benchmark LA4 and Townshend Pre on my investigate list. As for ADC the RME ADI Pro Black is favourite.
Angus, if you do end up going with the Bartok, just one suggestion on the ADC, get one that has a Word Clock input (which can be sync’ed to the Bartok’s Word Clock output or a dCS external Master clock).
The RME unfortunately doesn’t. ADCs that do, include; Antelope (Amari), Lynx (Hilo), Lavry (AD11), Forsell (MADC-2), Mytek (Brooklyn ADC), and probably half a dozen others.
I personally use the TASCAM DA-3000 for my Reel-to-Reel deck coupled to my Vivaldi stack. It’s not quite top-of-the-line, but it does the job (plus the ability to record any digital stream on compact-flash in both PCM and DSD allows me to do some other interesting things )
Chose the RME as I’ve had the 1st version of their consumer ADI-2 DAC a while ago and the Pro could be reused as a DAC later, the other I looked at in the Mytek but it’s an ADC only so single use, all moot if I go for a Pre Amp which is probably the sensible option. The dealer I am borrowing the Bartok from also has Benchmark so will borrow one if the Bartok gets the sign off, more baking off today.
Of course if you believe the “science/measurements are all” point of view folk like the pink panther guy have I’m wasting my time and should just buy the best measuring cheapo DAC and be done with it.
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