Article: APL Hi-Fi DSD-MR DAC and DNP-SR Streamer Full Review

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I too do not wish to be negative but I share the sentiment expressed here by those above about the pricing of these products. I read this very good review and then felt very sad at the end when I saw the price of these items. This kind of stuff just makes our hobby look like it is for a bunch of over privileged kooks to the rest of the world. It is no wonder that the high end of audio is shrinking away as those of us who are of a certain age naturally leave it. As there are fewer and fewer to buy at this level, the price will continue to rise as the sellers try to make more money from a shrinking base.

 

The future will eventually be that what we now would call mid-fidelity will be the new high end and the rest will be mass produced product of varying sound quality and build quality with low prices. Of course there will always be a few sellers of super expensive stuff and a few buyers for it but it won't be worth reviewing it either online or in print.

 

I don't mean to pick on this one particular seller because this is the trend now with nearly every seller of high end gear. They are all caught in the upward pricing spiral as their buyer base shrinks.

 

Sadly, I see no way out of it.

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1 hour ago, Abtr said:

 

I own a simple Schiit Saga preamp with tube output buffer (no gain stage) and a microprocessor-controlled relay-stepped attenuator for volume control. Shouldn't that sound as good as most preamps?  Personally I like and prefer  the Saga as a preamp in my system. The sound can be slightly tweaked by 'rolling' the dual triode tube. Nevertheless, I recently found that an RME ADI-2 DAC which uses the digital volume control of its AKM DAC chip, sounds 'better' in every respect without a preamp (active or passive). Do I need a better preamp? Do you think digital volume control would deteriorate the audio quality of the DSD-MR? Could rolling the tubes of the DSD-MR improve the sound?

If it works, stop trying to fix it. The digital volume controls on most chips these days are way ahead of years ago. Most pre-amps are just going to remove some clarity and filter the sound, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. A tube pre-amp will almost always add distortion which may sound pleasing to some if it is second order distortion only.

 

The moral of the story is, if you like what you hear from the RME DAC, love it and be content.