Not sure I understand the fuss about the 808.3 if anyone is considering Sooloos with MS600. The review by Cordsman in TAS stated the audio quality from each was indistinguishable.

It was a result of his enthusiastic review I jumped into Sooloos and, although a very expensive and time consuming exercise, I have never regretted the move. Sure there are still a few bugs in the system and the Metadata base is sometimes lacking but the convenience and the superb audio quality more than justify the expense and effort. In the last 3 months since the Sooloos acquisition I've not listened to a single audio disc on the player, and the player (modded Esoteric UX-1) would match anything available anywhere.

Back to the initial query about audio quality ex MS600, I've done some careful comparisons and really cannot detect much difference between:

1. balanced digital audio (speakerlink) -> modded Benchmark DAC1 (balanced digital input) -> headphones (Sennheiser HD800)

2. SPDIF -> balancing transformer -> long run -> modded Benchmark DAC1 (balanced digital input) -> headphones (Sennheiser HD800)

3. SPDIF -> modded Benchmark DAC1 -> preamp -> amps & speakers

4. SPDIF -> Meridian 861 (Direct) -> stereo amps & speakers

5. Balanced analog out -> preamp -> stereo amps & speakers

The audio quality to the stereo amps and speakers (3, 4, 5) is top quality BUT not quite as good as to the headphones (1, 2) but otherwise, within each grouping above I can hear no difference.

Conclusion: the apodising filter & DAC in the MS600 is first class and cannot be improved upon in the system here.

I like a bit of added ambience with surround so when listening to speakers use no 5 above with feedback from the second preamp output back to the 861. Oddly, I do not miss it with the Sennheiser headphones as the soundfield they reproduced comes with a dose of ambience. Only downside is I'm not fond of wearing the headphones for too long.

A bit off topic but I'd like to throw in a huge benefit I find with Sooloos. A few discs are great to listen to for the whole 70 odd minutes BUT many become somewhat tedious with so many tracks of the same ilk. Using the Sooloos "swim" one can so simply move between different albums to give variety.

John

Last edited by Tassie Devil; 2011-01-05 17:32.