Quote:
Originally Posted by joey_v
Yeah I had them side by side in my system and it was not close. Emm had much better imaging and musicality.
|
That TAS reviewer had an older EMM stacks when he compared the Cary 306 SACD with. Your EMM stacks are much newer and thus better IMO.
I'm still debating whether I should sell the Cary 306 and move on to using music streamer/DAC or standalone DAC/music server combo.
I was very impressed when listening to the Naim 500 series stacks the other day but the Naim ND 555 digital music streamer/DAC alone with 2 separate external Naim 555 PS DR power supply units for the ND555 streamer will cost me close to $50k. The Naim ND 555 streamer/DAC does not have onboard power supplies and is meant to be paired with Naim 555 PS DR external power supply unit(s). All Naim 500 series components (streamer/DAC, preamp & power amp) don't come with internal power supplies and are meant to be paired with external Naim 555 PS DR power supply units, at least one PSU for each component.
But if I have to go that route I will have to sell my Classe pre & amp combo and get the matching Naim NAS 552 linestage preamp & Naim NAP 500 DR power amp combo in order to take advantage of Naim's proprietary DIN connectivity to connect between Naim streamer/DAC, Naim preamp & Naim power amp in order to get best sound out of Naim individual component. And the Naim NAS 552 pre & NAP 500 DR amp don't have onboard power supplies and are meant to be paired with Naim 555 PS DR external power supply units, one for each component. The whole thing will run me well over $100k before cablings and speakers.
My cousin owns the Naim Statement NAC S1 linestage preamp & Naim Statement NAP S1 monoblock amps driving his Magico M9 speakers with the MSB Select II DAC stacks with two separate mono powerhouses (two PSUs) for the DAC & the MSB Select transport with its external PSU and the Taeko Audio SGM Extreme music server served as his digital front end. He also has the best of the best analog front end which consists of the Clearaudio Statement v2 turntable, Statement Goldfinger cartridge, Statement TT2 tonearm with the D'Agostino Momentum phono pre. The best setup/system I've ever heard at any given price points but his whole setup system cost around $1.8 millions with all cablings and AC power products included. I can only envy of his setup/system. Wished I had that kind of money to burn and the listening room size to accommodate all those. The Magico M9 are huge and are recently launched and are currently the Magico's flagship statement loudspeakers.
Those Naim Statement pre/monoblock amps combo are the best pre/amp combo I've ever heard but they are $270k just for the preamp and monoblock amps combo. That Magico M9 (recently released) is amazing and he was one of the first to get them recently. The M9s retail for around $750k a pair.