[Sonnova]

On Mon, 7 Sep 2009 10:45:18 -0700, John Stone wrote
(in article ):

On 9/7/09 10:11 AM, in article , "ST"
wrote:

3 days ago I decided to hook up my old Theta DS Pro Gen III DAC to my
Marantz SA11s2 just for the fun of it. To my surprise it sounded
better (more to my liking) then SA11s2. Theta used Motorola 56001s,
30.0000mhz Rubidium clock, PCM63K and AD841 Op-Amp. So my question is
how could an old DAC out perform a new reasonably well designed
Marantz?

Is it possible CD format technology already matured long time ago and
there's nothing new can really improve the sound?

ST

I'm still running a Theta Gen Va Balanced, which has to be pushing 13 yrs
old. Tomorrow I will receive, for evaluation, a Benchmark DAC1 HDR. It will
be interesting to see if there is any appreciable audible improvement. I
have my doubts..

I'm betting that the Theta will trounce it. I received a Benchmark DAC 1 PRE
to review and I found that both my upgraded DAC2.6 and the Redbook playback
via my Sony XA777ES sounded better!