Ypsilon CDT 100 & DAC 100 digital system

The Sound

I listened to the Ypsilon with almost every conceivable kind of music, and it was in my system long enough for others in the house to comment on how it sounds. I can tell you one thing, the Ypsilon was quiet, I mean quieter than any other source I have ever heard. I heard less digital hash, and it had a strikingly well developed and musical sound for digital. So, let’s see if I can tell you how it sounded.


Top-End and Midrange

The Ypsilon illuminated the whole frequency range from top to bottom, but the midrange and top end are the glory of this DAC. Even after a month of listening, I couldn’t seem to be able to get away from the way it spotlights the music and highlights individual instruments. Compared to VSEI Level 5+ Sony SACD or the Audio Note DAC 5 Special, it sounds like someone came along and turned on a spotlight switch so that you can hear everything clearer. Voices, strings, and horns all sound so clear that you can hear all the air and nuances around them. The nuances of recordings were made particularly easy to hear with this digital source. Whether or not this degree of clarity is more or less musical is a personnel decision, but for me it sometimes seemed a little clearer than life. The air and nuances of music was where I felt the VSEI modded SACD player and the Audio Note DAC 5 Special had bettered all other digital players. The Ypsilon gives the music listener a whole new standard in this area.

The detail is sharply focused, clear, and fast. There is no doubt about it, this unit is the yang – light to bright and more spectacular to the Audio Note DAC 5 Specials and the VSEI-modded Sony SACD 777ES’ warm to dark and involving ying, to borrow a description of a component’s character from HP.


Bass

The Ypsilon’s bass was undeniably impressive. It went very deep and had a really powerful impact. I think most would describe the Ypsilon digital’s bottom-end as deep, fast, and extremely powerful. What it didn’t have in the bass though was the kind of organic nuances and decay that bass instruments can have with the Audio Note DAC 5 Special or from the very best SACD. The Ypsilon had those nuances in the midrange and top-end, but not quite in the same way in the mid-bass or low-bass. The deep-bass and mid-bass both have a very tight, quick bass with a driving pace, but in my system it was just a little on the lean side.


Dynamics and Micro-dynamics

The dynamics and scale were simply stunning, and the width, depth, and vertical height were the most distinctive I have ever heard in my system. The Ypsilon created a truly big sound with a driving lifelike pace to the music. The micro-dynamics were also world class. This combination of world class dynamics and micro-dynamics give your system a chance to sound truly alive if the rest of your system is up to the job.


Soundstage and Imaging

This is area where I think most audiophiles will be blown away by the Ypsilon. The stage is wider and deeper than I realized digital could be in my system. I can only imagine how wonderful it would sound if played over a pair of monitors like the Raidho C1 mini-monitors I recently reviewed. The imaging was very pinpoint and unbelievably palpable. This is simply the kind of soundstage that most audiophiles dream of.

Specific Examples

One of my favorite digital recordings is King of the Cellist, Starker plays Kodaly. It is one of the most beautiful recordings of a cello I have ever heard, and it is inspiring to listen to the cuts that are of the cello and the violin. The Ypsilon illuminated the bass in a spectacular way, and on the cuts with both the bass and a violin it allowed you to feel like you can literally see the two instruments. It allowed you to hear the attack and the leading edge of each note more emphatically than I have ever heard before, and it was also easy to hear the bowing that is happening on each instrument within their own spaces.

Another recording I use in every review is Ella and Louis. On this recording, the voices were right there in the room with you. They sounded immediate and you could hear every breath they take. Both Ella and Louis had their own space even though that space was very close.

Even thought the Elvis is Back CD cannot hold a candle to the vinyl version, it still has Elvis’ version of ‘Fever’ on it and for me that’s enough to make me listen. This cut can have tremendous slam and startling dynamics. Here, the Ypsilon digital system brought the CD closer to the vinyl version than I thought possible. The Yipsilon produced powerful drive and the dynamics will make you sit up and listen. You could hear every nuance of Elvis’ voice and the presence factor was unbelievable.

Rickie Lee Jones' Pop Pop CD is beautifully recorded. The Ypsilon let you hear every detail on this CD, and the soundstage was just spectacular. Truth is I’ve loved and listened to this CD for years and I would have never believed there were things on this recording I had not heard, but there were.

Art Garfunkel’s Angel Glare is a favorite album of mine in musicality but not sound quality; I’ve never heard a DAC or CD player that could make this CD sound natural, and I’m sorry to say as good as the Ypsilon was, it couldn’t make a bad CD like this sound good. I wasn’t surprised, but I had to try.

Conclusion

As incredible as the Ypsilon CDT and DAC 100 was at $54,000, I have to ask if there is any other redbook digital playback system equally good? I’ve heard two that I found as musically involving: The Audio Note DAC 5 Special and The Audio Note DAC 5 Signature. One is about the same price and the other a good bit more. The choice of which one you would buy would depend on your taste in music and your pocket book. I’m going to assume if you can afford any of these three units, that money is really no object. The Audio Notes are a little more organic sounding, to me a little more emotionally involving, and more relaxed sounding. This all adds up to what I called listenability in my review of the DAC 5 Special. If you are more into soundstage, imaging, detail, and speed though, the Ypsilon pair gives you a real option.

Still, the Ypsilon CDT and DAC 100 most assuredly look more expensive than the Audio Notes, and have much more of what I think many audiophiles are looking for. So there you have it: The pair from Ypsilon are one of the three or four best digital playback systems I have ever heard, and I bet for many of you it will be the best.