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ALL212 · September 20

Klaus at Odyssey Audio has some Symphonic Line components and shipped one for me to try/buy. It’s a lot past my price range but this should be fun.

I have the Belcanto MK 3 cd player here. Still waiting on the external power supply - ETA Tuesday.

She weights in at about 30 lbs. Has multiple digital inputs, an internal DAC, balanced and standard analog outputs.

There isn’t much detail on the Symphonic Line website ( if you go there you’ll need your browser to shift it to English) other than mostly advertising lingo.

Low level fly by:

The analog outputs are on the left side in this pic. Balanced circuits below RCA and it appears that’s mostly powered by the external power supply ( the braided red/blue/black wires)

There’s no mention that I can find of which or type of DAC. I will not be removing anything to do further investigation.

Once the external power supply arrives I intend to pit it against the Twisted Pear DAC with ESS ES9038 Pro (or was it ESS ES9028 Pro?) chip set and just run some CD’s through it.

More to come…

SCompRacer · September 20

Regarding 9028/9038, they shared the same "Buffalo III SE Pro" boards and I do not recall the DAC chip being indicated. If it's mounted on a Legato I/V board, it should be a 9028. The 9028 was a two-channel stereo chip, the 9038 was an 8-channel DAC that they paralleled into a two channel. The 9038 current output was much higher, and a Legato would either clip or burn out. The Mercury I/V board was designed for the high current 9038 but it could be used on a 9028/9018 with some resistors changed. Powered off, you'd have to pop one of the regulators off to read the DAC chip. The 9038 offers more torque.

I learnt the CD player "uses a discrete 24-bit digital-to-analog conversion architecture paired with a large Class-A output stage, rather than disclosing or relying on a mass-market branded DAC chip."

VR3 · September 20

Reminds me of my klairhiet cd player, sounded very insanely amazingly good, some of the best sound I ever heard originated from that cd player.

But and a big but, it used a philips transport that was garbage and could not be repaired. Klaus actually swapped the unit maybe a year into it due to it failing.

billbillw · September 21

That's odd. Philips actually makes some of the best transports and they typically have easy repairs. I guess he just picked one of the bad designs.

VR3 · September 21

There's a philips transport from that era that alot of companies used that can not be repaired

Another well known disaster is the musical fidelity tri Vista cd player

VR3 · September 21

ALL212 · September 21

I’ll see if I can ID the transport. Klaus wouldn’t ship it until parts from Germany came in and I thought he mentioned transport.

billbillw · September 21

Ah, SACD transport. I was referring to the tried and true CD only Philips transports.

VR3 · September 21

I'm 95% sure this was the issue with my player

heiney9 · September 21

VR3 wrote: »

Reminds me of my klairhiet cd player, sounded very insanely amazingly good, some of the best sound I ever heard originated from that cd player.

But and a big but, it used a philips transport that was garbage and could not be repaired. Klaus actually swapped the unit maybe a year into it due to it failing.

But it's Delta Sigma and you said they all sound like wall paper?

H9

heiney9 · September 21

I say the above with tongue firmly planted in cheek. I have no doubt both players are probably superb. I know from experience Delta Sigma can sound excellent.

H9

treitz3 · September 21

It can and does, but in his defense and to my knowledge, this was waaaaay before he had ever heard an R2R DAC. Same here.

At the time, without a comparison? Eh, it is what it is. Now we know.

Tom

VR3 · September 21

The klarheit was an extremely good player and the Tyler super towers were very good speakers.

But that rig only sounded good playing twenty songs.

Where as a R2r sounds good playing everything

ALL212 · September 22

Adequate…

20+ lbs of power supply. I can’t see the size of the 4 blue caps but they’re big.

Single power input and two outs to the cd player.

Cd player works as does Roon bridge to USB input.

Output level is much lower than the twisted pear DAC. No issues there, gives the volume pot more granularity and at 11 o’clock is quite comfortable so plenty of range.

Seems “softer” than the TP.

Input selection is by button on the back that toggles through options.

More to come…

pitdogg2 · September 22

oooo flashing red lights, MY favorite !!

ALL212 · September 22

Darn things better not flash!!

Butter · September 22

Indeed!💪

pitdogg2 · September 22

ALL212 wrote: »

Darn things better not flash!!

For you STROBE....

ALL212 · September 23

This thing is smoooooth! Is cd only but DAC doesn’t seem to care what digital format I throw at it.

CD works very well. This has the lightweight transport, if I crack the case again I’ll see if I can ID it.

I wanted to try this somewhat out of curiosity to see how Roon would handle it but I’ve also been chasing some odd transients. Sounded like vinyl click/pops on some tracks but never consistent.
None with this in place.
That ESS from Twisted Pear might be too “hot” and was clipping. Working on that now.

Was ist das?

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