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Something still nagged at me, the sheer sound quality I had experienced with a third level of classics. There were two I then (and still do) put in this category. The first is Naim Audio's CDS which in 1994 sold for $6,925. That CD player had a natural live sound which was unparalleled especially if the music was not overly complex. By this I mean that if the CD had enough bits to capture all the music as with a solo acoustic guitar or a solo flute, there never was another CD player which could make you feel as though the music was right there in front of you live. In fact, my first encounter with this CD player happened in someone else's home where I purposefully went around a corner to find out who the tremendous classical guitarist in the other room was, only to discovered this CD player amidst an all-Naim system. It was just unbelievable, this live sound.


It did not, however, maintain this level of live richness when the music became complicated, i.e. when the bits tended to run out as in orchestral music or a complex vocal combo. Still, this Naim was one of the best and I do not think Naim's later players ever matched it. The other player was to my ears the best of the best, the Linn Sondek CD 12. This came out in 1998 and when it ceased production in 2005, sold for a cool twenty grand. It was worth every penny. I couldn't afford it but it was in my unfettered opinion the best CD player in the world. I was immensely pleased to note that in the April/May 2005 issue of The Absolute Sound, Robert Harley stated it was the best player he had ever heard and claimed that it would become a "future classic". He was right. Many people still refer to the Linn Sondek CD 12 as the best CD player ever made, some make the more cautious claim that it is the best "single unit" player ever made and when used units come up for sale, they are snapped up fast. The CD 12, very simply, had a natural analog sound that no other CD player came close to. The music was just there. Smooth and dynamic, with soundstaging that impressed and sounded natural, with detail and richness and dynamics and warmth all conjoined. I wanted one and even after getting my McCormack combo, planned to one day sell it and acquire a Linn Sondek CD 12. Yes, that future classic as Robert Harley termed it was in my opinion a classic already which I believed would never be equaled. I had been able to spend considerable time with three of these, each in a very different system. And in all three systems the CD 12 sounded unmatched. This conviction remained with me even when listening to subsequent Linn CD players. They ranged from good to excellent but none of them matched the CD 12.

Before I could raise the considerable cash for a used CD 12, temptation came knocking. Steve McCormack was offering an upgrade which would place all models of his DAC-1 at a level some listeners call ultra high-end. For about $1700 I could get this upgrade and even though I did not at all hope it would match the Linn Sondek, I believed I might attain a close approximation. I was sorely tempted and as Oscar Wilde put it so well, "the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it". So with some trepidation (after all, I had never heard one of these upgraded units), I sent my McCormack DAC-1 Deluxe off for an Ultra upgrade. It came back in due time, I hooked it up, experienced the above-mentioned honeymoon problems but then a plethora of multiple consummations. These, I dare say, deserve detailed commentary.


Stated simply, the SMc Audio Ultra DAC-1 bests all the competition. It is better than all the new units I have heard. While my McCormack DAC was back at the factory, I had opportunity for using a dCS Puccini just introduced in 2008 with a retail value of $19,900. I had it for about a week and it was a fine player but not worth the price and not nearly at the level of what I would soon get back from the SMc Audio laboratory. I also had opportunity to listen to a top-line Ayre and also the best Wadia. Again I judged good, not worth the money and not nearly as good as the Linn Sondek CD 12. Next I actually encountered the luxury of hearing three Audio Research CD players in the same system on the same day! I heard two Reference CD 7 players ($9,000) and one Reference CD 8 player ($10,000). All were tubed with different brand tubes which made for three very different-sounding machines. Of the three, one of the CD 7 players was best, the other CD 7 player ranked third and the CD 8 occupied the middle. All three were great but so tube-dependent as to cause much variation and one could end up getting a very bad one and never realize the tubes as culprits. I also heard other very expensive players too numerous to mention here and of them all, the Audio Research CD 7 and CD 8 ranked at the top of what is available today. However, they are not as good as the fabled Linn Sondek CD 12. And the Linn Sondek CD 12 is not as good as my SMc Audio Ultra DAC-1 [the following image opens to full size in a new window].

The SMc Audio UltraDac upgrade
Although I readily concede that I haven't heard them all, I suspect no other CD player in the world matches the SMc Audio Ultra DAC-1. Allow me to describe the various aspects of playback which this player does so well.


I: Treble: In this range the old McCormack gear has always presided supreme over the competition so I would have thought no improvement possible. But there was an improvement which I first noticed on tracks from three different CDs where the singer is using a tambourine. I was hearing the 1st, 2nd and 3rd harmonics of the tambourine filling that part of the soundstage with a sheen of truly pristine sound. This range and its clarity were present in other music too from James Galway on his 24K golden flute to an orchestra's triangle. In the treble range, my McCormack DAC had already been putting out a square wave accurate down to the millimeter but this SMc Audio Ultra DAC-1 is putting out a square wave accurate down to the molecule.


II: Midrange: As to midrange, my McCormack Deluxe modified into an SMc Audio Ultra DAC-1 was improved in every way. The midrange is more pure, vocals are more well-rounded and instruments richer in texture. Probably the most difficult part of the tonal spectrum to get right is the lower midrange where the female alto works and where the mezzo soprano descends to. Often the system thins out here and one knows fully well the problem is with the system and not with the voice because in live performances the voice, if anything, gains in presence when in this area. So I was immensely gratified to discover that weight in the lower midrange not only had improved but was impressive. Hearing Marilyn Horne hit her low notes now melts my heart. A bass clarinet sounds authoritative instead of nasal. A Gibson J-200 guitar's bottom end can be distinguished from a Gibson Heritage's bottom end. This kind of weight in the lower midrange was there in the Linn CD 12 but not at this level of naturalness. Congratulations to SMc Audio for achieving what is almost impossible to attain!


III: Mid-Bass: The mid-bass is significantly improved, with natural resonance I have never before heard on digital. This comes clearly from this DAC's ability to resolve the fundamental precisely and also produce every nuance of the overtones. A 200Hz note is sounded and one hears the 400Hz first harmonic, the 800Hz second harmonic and so on. The result is that plucked notes on a double bass have a snap that gives the note a leading edge without masking the deeper tone of the fundamental. A bass voice not only has power, it also has pleasant personality. The low notes on a viola are rich in texture but also possess their own personality so that one would never confuse its notes with the high notes on a cello.


IV: Deep Bass: The deep bass below 100Hz is also improved. And here I make a claim that some audiophiles would disagree with. But I avow some degree of authority since I do possess perfect pitch and am a bass player. My claim: Many systems do not produce deep bass accurately. I am not talking about the richness, personality, resonance or the volume. I am talking about pitch. Very often a digital playback system for reasons I do not understand (although I do understand why this can happen with LPs) simply does not produce for example the bottom E on an electric bass accurately. The note instead is slightly sharp or flat. Does one conclude the note was played this way? One wonders but then puts the recording on a different system and it isn't off-key at all. So I do know that pitch definition in the low bass is often a problem in digital but never with this SMc modified DAC-1. Perhaps the best way of illustrating this is paradoxically to point to a recording where the deep bass is actually recorded off key - the interlude of very deep bass in the aforementioned "Orinoco Flow" by Enya. She is playing the bass line on a synthesizer and some of those notes are off-key. Few people notice this but when I point it out, they can no longer ignore it. Her synthesizer is out of tune. (And yes, synthesizers, electric pianos and such do go out of tune. In fact, I had a long discussion about this with a keyboard repairman here in Saint Louis. He said they all go out of tune and explained why. There is one exception, the old Hammond organ, which uses a spinning wheel locked into the synchrony of the motor which itself is locked into the 60Hz AC. He showed me the guts of a big Hammond, drew diagrams and explained the matter thoroughly. I came away assured that my oft-held observation of off-key electric keyboards was accurate.) Back to Enya. Her synthesizer is clearly if minimally out of tune on those bottom notes which occur from 1'48" to 2'15" of this song. If you cannot hear it, you either have an unpracticed ear or your system is not very good at resolving low-bass notes in terms of pitch accuracy. I thus uphold the superiority of this SMc Audio Ultra DAC-1 on the paradoxical basis that it can accurately reproduce what here is not accurate. As for reproducing what is accurate, I have recordings that go down to 18Hz and I myself can hear test tones accurately down to 15Hz. In this subterranean region, the SMc Audio Ultra DAC-1 is authoritative, tight and unerringly accurate when it comes to pitch definition.

V: Detail: In the area of rendering detail, I believe no gear in the world does as fine a job at this as the vintage McCormack so I expected no improvement in this area. However there was one which was not at first obvious but then became apparent in a rather indirect way. I found that in many songs where I had long ago quit trying to understand the lyrics I now could understand them clearly. Every listener experiences this problem at least some of the time, flipping to liner notes to find out exactly what the words are. This kind of detail is now being given and affords a whole new dimension not only of pleasure but also of relaxation. (It deserves being noted here that many components give more detail only at the price of being too bright; this is not at all the case with this unit.)


VI: Dynamics - 3 Criteria: In dynamics the SMc Audio Ultra DAC-1 excels superbly. Dynamic capability (or failure) in a component is something we all understand but have difficulty explaining. I believe I can however give a passable accounting of what dynamics involve and will use this accounting for the sake of pointing to the capabilities of this unit. Dynamics have three qualities which I here enumerate:


VI A: The first involves the ability of the audio system to move around in volume and do so with a sense of both urgent immediacy and graceful ease, giving a balance of attack and smoothness, power and grace, excitement and relaxation. This is the part of dynamic presentation most listeners are closely attuned to and which they well understand.


VI B: A second quality is how the image insofar as it is localized in space changes when the volume changes. In live music, when a normal or medium volume level increases, the image comes forward somewhat but not overly much. It may push up close to you but it doesn't jump in your face. When a normal volume level grows soft in live music --- much softer -- it does not recede. It does not move back in space but stays where it was. In good playback a considerable increase in volume does cause a forward sound but this is what happens in live music anyway so some degree of forwardness in digital and other playback should not be criticized when the volume increases significantly. Instead it should be welcomed because it is reproducing exactly what live music does. However, if the music recedes and appears to move farther back spatially when a normal volume level decreases, there is a problem with dynamic control in the system.


VI C: A third aspect of dynamics involves what happens with or to the timbre of the music when shifts of volume happen quickly, extremely or with subtle nuance. Said in a different way, do the instruments still sound like the same instruments if a brace of cornets at normal volume and tempo suddenly shifts into a loud staccato fanfare? They should still sound like cornets, not suddenly like trumpets. If a jazz solo played on the alto sax goes from energetic and loud to a softer, less forceful sound, does that alto sax suddenly sound like a tenor sax? If it does then dynamic control is a problem in the playback chain.


How does the SMc Audio Ultra DAC-1 handle the three facets of dynamic control? Perfectly. The sense of attack and liveliness melds with smoothness and control. Increases in volume above normal levels occasion the exact degree of forwardness that happens in live music but decreases in volume from a normal level do not occasion the music being more distant. And regardless of volume changes or pacing, whether flagrant or subtle, the timbre of the instruments ranging from voice to brass to woodwind to full orchestra to washtub bass remains the same. Dynamic control -- with control being the key word -- is very difficult to achieve in audio but this DAC does it perfectly.