David,
Glad I gave you a chuckle. Thank you for your years of public service. What can I say, I love music. They are 802's not 800's though so they're a tad lighter haha. You may be surprised to hear that having them has helped difficult meetings -- a lot of people know about them or have owned a pair or always wanted to hear a pair -- the system is great at breaking tension and putting people at ease.
As for what other DAC's I evaluated out there, it started out as more about wanting to improve my system. I first looked at speakers and considered my options there, but found my Alexia's and Boulder's were "mostly" Chameleons when it came to changes in cables and DAC's -- so there was still room for improvement in my chain, which I decided was my DAC. There wasn't much available at the time that did MQA so I didn't exclude anything from my evaluation for not supporting it or outright stating they would, but it certainly factored into the decision in the end. I went all over the range -- any DAC under $40K was game for a period of time (there was a time I couldn't of afforded it and was looking at sub $20K range as well). So I listened to the Vivaldi a lot. I spent several days with a newly broken in 2100 series Boulder pre and a 3060 along with a pair of Alexia 2's and went back and forth between the Vivaldi and the Rossini. In the end, I realized the difference was not night and day to my ears (on that system, which was wired will all Valhalla-2 cables -- everything from top to bottom). I wasn't discouraged by the fact that the The Vivaldi DAC doesn't have the network board in it -- MQA would require another box to add to the price on top of matters. I also listened to the Chord, the Nagra and the Esoteric D02 (no "Grandioso" was available to audition unfortunately). I really wanted to spend some time with the MSB Ref, but it was not possible at the time. I still am not sure about their DAC's and next time I'm in NYC I may drop in on the dealer there that carries them, but I just didn't have the time or patience unfortunately and once I found the DAC I liked I stopped looking. I also never got a chance to audition the Berkeley Ref 2, but I don't like the fact they don't support USB directly and are not a streamer so that wasn't a good thing in my book. My experience with the 808v6 was not good and I do not want to trash the dealer or really get into the experience so I'll just say my impression was that it was a great sounding DAC, but had some characteristics I just didn't like. I took a lot of notes, but it's not really worth going into details at this point because I do not want to make this about X vs Y. I'll just say that to me, I preferred the sound qualities of dCS gear. Every manufacturer seems to have a sound characteristic. And Meridian has managed to stay afloat by embracing technology in ways that other companies would have gone bankrupt if they approached, so they are to be commended for the risk taking they do (a good example is when they started abandoning the traditional speaker cable in favor of a digital cable and put a DAC in every speaker -- that's pretty bold. As as we all know, DAC's have a sound characteristic of their own and they added that on top of the characteristic of the speaker -- again, that's a big risk.) So Meridian is no stranger to digital and it really shouldn't come as a shock to anyone that MQA came from them -- they invented MLP and still hold a lot of the patents for technologies used for multi-channel cinema / digital audio encoding.
The 808v6 vs the Ultra DAC -- all I was able to get a hold of was the 808. I find it interesting that they added DSD and focused more on the DAC part with the Ultra, however I never spent any time with it. I doubt they sound the same, but I'm sure they have similarities, just like dCS does among their DAC's. Sorry, not helpful, but I would probably say in terms of upgrade ability, that you'll get a long life from either product, but probably longer from the 808 since it's been out forever. Who knows what they may do with the Ultra -- they could choose to drop it altogether, but they'll keep making the 808 I'm guessing.
About the Rossini:
I found it was another "Chameleon" and that took me by surprise as I've never experienced that in a DAC of all things. I was overly analytic of it and dismissed it after the first 2 days of an at home trial. The last day, I did some reading up on it like I should have to begin with and learned about the filters and how they all work and the changes they can have (read John Atkinson's review of the Rossini where he talks about those he prefers as a reference.). I still find the Rossini to be a Chameleon and swapped out all my XLR's as I realized they were having a bigger impact than I had ever imagined. And this doesn't just apply to cables. When playing back music, the Rossini changed it's characteristics depending on what your were playing back, how you were playing it back, and the recording itself. I'm sure the Vivaldi does this as well, but I didn't notice it as I didn't take one home. The point is that it can be very open at times, very sharp when playing back modern EDM (and other kinds of electronic-based music), and changes its spots like nothing else I've ever heard. I can say that I've never heard a piano sound so realistic until I got the Rossini and that's a function of the DAC and the filter (ringing/pre-ringing). So I'm still figuring out a lot about the Rossini and I've had it for about 5 months now. When I started doing a more large-scale comparison, I felt that the Rossini was bringing out layers, presence and smoothness in a way that I enjoyed more than other DAC's I auditioned -- other than the Vivaldi -- which while better, was a LOT more for a "little" bit of better. Now a full Vivaldi stack with the upsampler and clock make you forget your listening to digital at all. You get a glimpse of that with the Rossini. I'd say probably 75% of it even if I had to quantify it. I know a lot of other's will argue the difference is greater, but it to my ears on the system I just mentioned above, I did get a listen to the full stack Vivaldi vs the Rossini and I would rather spend my money on something else. I suppose we're talking about twice the price almost.
Also, in terms of sound quality, the Rossini is just as good over the network as it is with a very good USB cable. I've heard people say some units are better over the network, but frankly I can't hear a difference. So I sold my USB cable and just drive it from the network and use Roon, which is just what listening to digital music should be. My recommendation for anyone considering a DAC is to consider how you're going to play music back and how much more convenient your experience is going to be. Some streamers have great apps, some don't. I have not used the dCS app for the Rossini and I cannot testify to how good it is (or isn't). I use Roon instead, however the Rossini app is a convenience when setting it up and updating it.
If I had the time, I'd love to hear what the MSB Reference sounds like. I'd venture to guess it's somewhere in-between the Rossini and Vivaldi SQ-wise.
As an aside, this is all to my "old ears" and I spent a previous life in airplanes for the USAF which has slightly damaged my hearing to some degree -- that said, I can hear good enough to know the differences between the gear I listen to and know what I like. It just may not be what you like. For example, as much as I thought I liked it, I eventually could not handle the titanium tweeter in the earlier Wilson's and was about to dump them when they released the CST tweeter which is just amazing -- but I'm digressing from the topic of this thread and that's DAC's and MQA.
I also think the next couple of years are going to be interesting in terms of sub $15K DAC's that support MQA and also streaming as it's finally getting some traction, and streaming is here to stay.
Good luck in your hunt and let us all know what you end up getting. There's no wrong answer to any of this. It's what you can afford combined with what you like and how it sounds together with the rest of your system that matter most.
Bryan
Hi Jim and Bryan
I have not heard the 808 but I suspect the 818 is identical in sound. I see you both have moved to the Rossini,a product I get to audition in January,alongside some of the best in 'class'. I would welcome your thoughts and particularly what else you auditioned prior to selecting the Rossini. As I'm new to this site and this may have been stated before, please feel free to PM instead of posting the same material again.
I started writing on this site on the Brinkmann Nyquist thread(nice product!) and have just posted some details there about a new range of products called Quiescent.You may want to check out.As mentioned, these products are aimed 'high' but MQA will not be part of it !! You can read their website to see why!
Bryan-I had to 'laugh' ! A 'fun system at work' with B&W 800s !!! I remember towards the end of my career(as a Police Officer) I ended up in an Office and took my little desk top system to work which had some very small 'actives' They didn't last long !!
