[rklein]

Ajzepp:  What is your source??  The reason that I ask is I am currently running a SB3 with digital mods by Wayne at Boulder into a Zhalou 2.0 DAC(changed out the op amps), which then is fed into my 10A pre.  As you know I was interested as well in a Monarchy.  However, if you are interested in the SB3 route (I love mine!! I can access my entire CD collection from my couch!) instead of a dedicated CD player you should investigate Boulder and going with analogue mods.  There are plenty of AC'ers who have much more resolving & expensive systems than mine who have gone this route and either run the SB3 to their preamp (no separate dac needed) or directly to their amps with great results.  You would end up spending less money for the analogue mods(from @ $550-$1,000 depending on the level of mods) as opposed to $1,080 for the Monarchy and probably have a better sounding system. 

rklein

[ajzepp]

rklein: Thanks for the info, I'd never heard of that before...I'll definitely consider that route, cause I want the best source I can afford 

The only source I have now (get ready to laugh) is a little iPod Nano connected to my Mapletree by a cable from Audio Line Out. It bypasses the headphone output in the iPod and allows the signal to be taken directly from the  main output of the Nano. This is partly why I'm so impressed with the Mapletree...what I've mostly been playing are iTunes downloads, which are compressed music files. These tracks just should not be sounding this good, yet they are! My Denon 2900 crapped out on my two weeks ago. Even though it'll recognize DVDs for the most part, it's not recognizing CDs anymore   So even though I really like it's audio performance, I'm out of luck. I had a repair estimate from a local Denon repair center for $159, and I may have it fixed so that I can use it as a transport. I've run this player into the ground over the past five years...it's been a very solid performer, so I hate to see it go. But yeah, right now I'm playing imperfect music files on an imperfect source, and things sound great!

[ajzepp]

Before I bought my Mapletree preamp, I was strongly considering a multichannel analog preamp. I basically gave in to all the confusion and frustration that this transition period in HT (e.g HDMI, new audio formats, etc) was causing me and decided to just keep it simple by going with a stereo preamp with HT bypass, and then adding a pre/pro or receiver later. Well, now that I know there are BD players coming out, such as the new Denon 3800, that have all the bass mgt, channel trim, and calibration features that I need, I am strongly considering going back to Dr. P for one of his analog MC preamps, and using it in conjunction with my current Line 2A SE.

Basically Dr. P can make a preamp with two 5.1 inputs and one 5.1  output. My main sources will be a BD player and an HD-DVD player, though I'm not investing any more money in the latter since it seems to be on it's knees. But anyway, I know Dr. P said he's made a few of these for his customers, so I was wondering if anyone had one and what they thought about it. I've been running my DVDs in stereo through my Mapletree and the improvement in SQ vs. the 5.1 digital audio from my Outlaw pre/pro is night and day. I don't need a lot of fancy bells and whistles, and my room is fully treated so I'm not all that worried about having automatic room correction such as what can be found in many of the newer receivers and processors. I can use an external HDMI switching for video, so that's not a concern. As far as I can tell, if I have a full-featured player, this would work perfectly.

Thoughts, anyone?