TEAC UD-301 Balanced DAC/Amp

eBay teac store right now. Open box $299 all black. They have the silver side pictures but it's the XB version.

"""First reel to reel has always exceeded the quality of cd"""" False! The best tapes equal to about 15bits of resolution just shy of CD's 16bits. Now if you wanna claim that CD's deliberately or just out incompetence were encoded by substandard content or the fact that AD technology were lacking at the early stages, than I agree with that, but that's not the medium's fault. """Second it is part of the process that an album is recorded in higher quality before mixed and mastered, the process itself limits the end product. So yes there is a technical reason.""" Also false, especially the last decade or so. Labels can release the exact same files that was used for the master, they just don't want to so they can milk it for years to come for a re-issue. In fact MQA claims that is exactly what you get, though in a lossy format. """"As for quality with 24 bit pcm and dsd (dsd was designed as a format to archive reel to reel masters as before its creation no digital format could do it justice, along with replicating analog the best""""" Yes I'm aware of Sony's fable and how it rather turned their single bit step child into their new cash cow wanna be SACD instead of archiving , yet they failed. The new multi bit DSD is far superior.... """" now mainstream and available in full resolution to the public without requiring a $2000+ player to hear the benefit we are very blessed."""" You just admitted to my second point ;)

First reel to reel has always exceeded the quality of cd. Second it is part of the process that an album is recorded in higher quality before mixed and mastered, the process itself limits the end product. So yes there is a technical reason. As for quality with 24 bit pcm and dsd (dsd was designed as a format to archive reel to reel masters as before its creation no digital format could do it justice, along with replicating analog the best) now mainstream and available in full resolution to the public without requiring a $2000+ player to hear the benefit we are very blessed. DSD need to be native and not pcm conversion to appreciate the difference but still both are amazing. As always though it depends on the orginal source. the early 2000's and having bands produce albums in mp3 for fans was pathetic. Good in good out. Besides even those spending large amounts of money for the average person will still not reap all the benfits of the sound as most forget to apply acoustic science (speaking of the speaker fans here) and design and treat a room to negate audio distortions caused by the listening environment which are unique to every room.