saturdayboy

Bravo Josh!!! Great writing

Agreed 100%

I have owned an Auralic Vega 2 and a Mytek Manhattan but have also heard a lampizator Golden Gate and dcs Rossini. Of course the later two were not in my system, but the 3.0 is in the same league as those imo.

not sure what you are asking about preamps. i don't use preamps, and as i stated the preamp in the cantata works well. there are plenty of reviews online. i posted my thoughts already on this thread, the biggest improvements i hear are spatial (i.e. where the different sounds in the recording are located) and the decay of notes. not really good and describing that kind of stuff, so check out what the others are saying. definitely found the upgrade substantial and worth the price.

there are plenty of people who like the sound of r2r dacs, and don't care about DSD. personally, i think that both the 2.0 and 3.0 sound better than any DSD or MQA that i have heard (and i have owned several dacs that played those files). the preamp is analog, and sounds great. i stopped using preamps long ago and have been using dacs straight into amp and have never looked back. most reviewers will tell you the same. the difference from the 2.0 to 3.0 is substantial soundwise. goes from being a very good dac to a world class one, imo. no change on the stability of UPNP, but it is just as intuitive as UPNP device.

i own a Cantata 3.0 as well and i agree with the above statements. what it accomplishes with 16/44.1 and higher pcm files is amazing. i am hearing spatial and ambient information that is superior to anything i've heard from the DSD or MQA equipped dac's i've heard or owned, all with the natural flow that R2R dac's do best.

No option to install a hard drive and store music locally?

what i'm suggesting is that there are several high-end dac's currently for sale which use this configuration which are not known for nasty distortion.

A dac with multiple 1543 chips can handle 24/96, quite well

At least he writes great posts about McIntosh amps and cassette tapes. I never thought I would say this, but I miss Michael Lavorgna. https://www.audiostream.com/content/aurender-n10-preview-and-lack-subtlety

the Hugo 2. haven't heard the Holo Springs stuff, but it gets really good reviews. i too got sick of boxes and power supplies, which is what makes a product like the Vega G2 such a breath of fresh air. all you need is a TIDAL account and an ethernet cable and you are set for about 95% of what you want to listen to. the rest you can store on an NAS or computer. the fact that it also sounds great makes it a no brainer. sure it's a little pricey, but it's not that bad when you think how much people spend on all the peripheral stuff.

the Aries G2 is a streamer/server, and the Vega G2 is a dac with some streaming capabilities, so that's apples and oranges. I've had a handful of dac's in my system in the last couple of years (COS, Rowland, NAD, Chord, Reimyo) the Vega G2 beats them all. i think it comes very close to a dcs Rossini for a fraction of the price. also tried a bunch servers/renderer/usb to spdif options, never cared for the sound - sounded too processed. Vega G2 connects straight to router with an ethernet cable, and sounds really natural streaming TIDAL, and equally good connected to a mac mini and blu ray player. check out the reviews.

Auralic Vega G2 is a bit over $5K, but it is a world class dac that can stream TIDAL via ethernet and has toslink, usb, and coax inputs as well. I am streaming mostly 16/44.1 via TIDAL and it sounds spectacular.

It’s based on a customized ESS Sabre chip, which is described as differing from a standard delta sigma chip. It’s the first non-R2R dac that I actually like.

I too found the sound of the ultrarendu (as well as bel canto renderer) to underwhelming, and I‘m not fond of usb straight to dac either. Recently picked up a Vega G2 and have been feeding it Tidal and my files on an NAS via Ethernet. Best sounding digital I’ve ever experienced.