Going mad, thinking about selling

Worth being nostalgic about. Good stuff. Once had those as well.

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Long time ago I sold my Dragon, and still sometimes in the night, half asleep, I cry.

But also I miss my BX2 and LX5.

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Oh, the Dragon!

If only Nakamichi made something to automatically turn me over in bed at night.

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I was talking of the first (or initial) postā€¦but never mind, it is not important.

I sold my Rossini for 1 year ago, and bought a Light Harmonic VI DAC used for 2500ā‚¬ , but i did not want to listen to music as often i felt, so then i bought a dCS factory re-furbished Black Paganini DAC with dual transformer upgrade instead, with an Auralic Aries femto streamer, and now i can enjoy the music as before, but much cheaper.

So if you consider to sell the Rossini, then look for a second gen dCS dac with a Clock with usb input, and you will be near as happy, and save some money.

Another alternative is the Mola Mola PWM dac with integrated streamer , that thing sounds immensely good, moore smooth than a Bartok and almost like the Vivaldi.

MM not bad, but itā€™s not all that close to a Vivaldi. Worth a listen, but I donā€™t think itā€™s in that league. YMMV, of course.

I havenā€™t heard the Mola-Mola, but it does remind me of the old adage about [when] the only tool you have is a hammerā€¦ To Bruno, the solution to any problem is always PWM :wink:

Ironically, I think the design of the Mola-Mola DAC is remarkably similar to what Sharp did in their SM-SX100 1-bit Integrated Amplifier from back in the year 2000!! Native delta-sigma design with 7th order noise shapers and low-pass filters for output.

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Please borrow one and compare, i havent heard them side by side or A+B tested them with a Vivaldi, just comparisson from memory, but i had one Mola Mola home for 2 weeks and it did play remarkably well.
The micro dynamics and smoothness was something else.

So to Anup, dont judge before you have herd it :blush:

Agreed, itā€™d be unfair for me to judge its Sound Quality before Iā€™ve had a chance to hear it :grin:

I have heard it but havenā€™t compared side by side. And I agree that comparison shouldnā€™t be about the tech, but about the execution. I had that same discussion with someone about the Merging+Player, which sounds wonderful despite being based on mundane ESS chips. I wasnā€™t impressed enough to buy MM. I had the opposite reaction to dCS. Why revisit?

ā€¦ quite right. As a long time Naim user and forum member I can say that the Naim Community provides a fantastic resource of knowledge and experience but occasionally there are disappointingly negative comments on a personal level. Iā€™m new to the dCS community and I like what I have seen

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Dunc,

Why donā€™t you buy a Debussy and say a Primare NP5. You will get the downgrade but still dCS quality output.
Just a thought

PS: thatā€™s what Iā€™ve for my second system. First system is full Vivaldi stack

Just going to keep the rossini and clock, plus my melco N10, as even though I am not using it much right now, its nice to have for when I do.
But right now vinyl is my go to source as long as I have it, and only buying vinyl even though I have a qobuz sublime account

I feel excited every time that I listen to my SME 20/3.

Well actually the sme 20/2 is going as having an upgrade, already agreed and in place

Funny reading thisā€¦
I upgraded my Brinkmann Bardo with a Kuzma 4P arm (from my SME IV, which has now moved to the Michel Gyrodec in the office). The Bardo and the Benz Micro Ruby Z stayed the same. But I just kept on drawing records out of my collection and listen to them if they were all new. Not a single day on digital listening no CDā€™s, no streaming on my Rossini.
I thought as well: Vinyl has topped digital again in my system.

After a few weeks this settled down a bit. I rediscovered some digital recordings of classical music that really make the music flow and sparkle in a way that none of my vinyl records can. But also that many recordings in my vinyl collection canā€™t be matched for their engagement and atmosphere by even the highest bit-rate digital remasters.

I came to the conclusion that Iā€™m really privileged by having such a great improvement on my vinyl playback, so much new joy from my old collection. And on top of that I can enjoy the, what I deem, the worldā€™s best digital playback system for some of those brilliant new recordings that capture even more of the artistsā€™ performance and the ambiance it is played in.

Although admittedly at the lower end (compressed formats, digital amps, budget materials) things are probably worse than ever beforeā€¦
Iā€™m now more than ever convinced that digital and analog are fully complimentary in my music listening. With the quality level that, in particular, dCS has been able to achieve, and an increasing amount of amazing recordings out there (in particular in the classical music scene) there is no doubt for me that we finally see the promise of digital audio technology being delivered.

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Same here Albert. I equally enjoy analog and digital at the same rate with a slight preference for analog.
For me currently best SQ is turntable followed by SACD (Rossini Transport), then by CDs (upsampled) and finally streaming through Nucleus/Roon.

A few random thoughts as I await my Bartokā€¦ Like many here I have a very good vinyl rig (JA Michell Orbe SE / SME309 with a Dynavector). Since I listen to mainly newly recorded classical music, that means digital. Vinyl is mostly ā€˜family fun listingā€™ with my daughter who likes Jazz records. I toy with giving up vinyl and running the Bartok direct but I just canā€™t seem to part with my vinyl rig.

In general terms my reason for going digital in the first place decades ago was exactly the same as yours.I also have a broadly similar vinyl rig albeit with some modifications to the Orbe which transform its performance ( in a good way). I would expect them to be if interest to you but as this is not really a forum for vinyl matters I hope that you will not object to my sending you a PM.

Despite having a three box Vivaldi plus Rossini Transport I too would certainly not part with my vinyl rig either .

Well that is interestingā€¦ I have had a Rossini+Clock since 2017, very happy with it. Recently I got an SME 20/3, SME V arm, Dynavector XV-1s, and a van den Hul The Grail. I would not get rid of the Rossini simply because I love music and streaming and I want it to sound good - getting every piece of music I want sounding great on vinyl is just not possible.

I was playing Rossini the other day, with a new pair of Kondo Ls-41 interconnects that I had to get (the original Kondo KSL-LPz ones I was using with Rossini moved to the phono preamp). It was sounding amazing, super fun. Then I decided to play Depeche Modeā€™s ā€œMusic For The Massesā€ on the turntable and I was likeā€¦ ā€œF*CKā€!!! You know what Iā€™m talking about.

Check out my insta page http://instagram.com/ongakumeansmusic.

(also some recent interview with Steve Guttenberg on his channel)