Hi Srajan – I have been listening to music for the past few years using my Mac with a USB DAC. I had a Bryston’s BDA-2 and sold it, thinking I’d wait for a used BDA-3 to show up. Then I pulled out my Prima DAC which had slight damage due to a house fire (so I kept it in the closet thinking I’d never want to risk selling damaged goods to anybody). I mated the Prima with my Bel Canto CD-2 via an AES/EBU cable and wow… what a blooming airy soundstage compared to my Mac setup!. Must be the tube output stage I thought . I mean, the Mac setup sounded awesome,but this made me realize how special the Prima DAC really is. It has been utterly reliable and I was puzzled as to why there were so many reliability complaints about the Capitole player. I will be having a tech bring the Bel Canto’s firmware up to date. That will enable it to output 44.1 instead of 96K so the Prima gets a pure RedBook signal to do its magic on. Do you agree that doing this would be the way to go for getting the best from the Prima?
So to me, I’m thinking, wow, this like an ultimate Audio Aero Capitole player without the reliability problems. Bel Canto’s Philips Pro transport is very reliable and solid. I also power it with the external LNS 1 power supply so it’s inky black and resolute. Too bad Audio Aero disappeared. The Prima players were so plagued with problems that I guess it may have ruined their reputation. Hope you are well and having a Happy new year! – Ted Starr
Today, Vermeer Audio in France are Audio Aero reborn. As to modifying your Bel Canto transport to output native 44.1kHz rather than upsampled 96kHz signal… that's a very interesting question. I can't predict whether you'd find much of a difference but in general, I prefer doing my power-of-two upsampling in 64-bit computer software like Audirvana. The best thing would be to have it selectable so you get to decide what you like best. I don't remember what Audio Aero did with their S.T.A.R.S. process relative to up/resampling but chances are good that it was more ambitious than Bel Canto's. In which case you'd be on the right track. Srajan
