I took my Rega Saturn round to my boss's house last night and was truly gobsmacked at the difference his 14 year old Theta DAC made to the performance of my cd player.

He has a valve system, modified Audionote and Art Audio with Lowther horns. I don't know whether there was just synergy with this system and the Theta , but the difference with and without his DAC was massive, my cd sounded as flat as a pancake and pretty uninspiring without and with, it just came alive, better in every single respect. The Theta was also fully balanced into his pre-amp, don't know how much difference that would make.

Anyway, as a result, I'm definately tempted to have a go with a second hand one.

I took my Rega Saturn round to my boss's house last night and was truly gobsmacked at the difference his 14 year old Theta DAC made to the performance of my cd player.

He has a valve system, modified Audionote and Art Audio with Lowther horns. I don't know whether there was just synergy with this system and the Theta , but the difference with and without his DAC was massive, my cd sounded as flat as a pancake and pretty uninspiring without and with, it just came alive, better in every single respect. The Theta was also fully balanced into his pre-amp, don't know how much difference that would make.

Anyway, as a result, I'm definately tempted to have a go with a second hand one.

Some early DACs are very interesting IMO, especially 16 bit chip units. Often surprisingly dynamic ;)

The biggest impression ever made on me was a dem of a Theta Pro Prime DAC 20 years ago. I have never heard anything like it since. I took it home and listened to Jessey Norman singing the Liebestod from Tristan and Isolda. Jeez, those waves actually crashed onto the Cornish cliffs. One of the greatest audio moments of my life. These dudes knew what they were doing. To give you an idea, most British DAC's made the same piece sound like a bottle of mineral water thrown onto toilet wall.
I tried to nail a Gen V a few years ago on Audiogon while I was pissed in Barcelona but my credit card would not pass the transaction. I still hanker after one.

Interesting - this was a Theta Pro Prime 2.

the trick would be to hear one now compared with the current 'Star Trek' levels of conversion, be interesting would it not?


PS I opened the case at the time and the boards were miles ahead of the prosaic stuff being punted by the Brits.

I used to have the DS-Pro Progeny. I wish I'd mever sold it as it was excellent. Beat off several grands worth of dCS gear when I compared - much more musical.

Yup! lavish North American engineering ( in all the right places). Actually I heard a Krell 300 cd player in about 1998 and it too had the same bold dynamics.

What would be good would be a bake off between these pioneers and current favourites. My guess is that there are probably a lot of modern charlatans out there and some technically good machines which only just better the Thetas of 20 yrs ago.

That Prime 2 has two inputs, so would be grand for me - one for the Saturn, one for the Squeezebox.

I thought that the Saturn was a good player, but if this DAC does the same thing in my system, the DAC part of the Saturn is definitely letting it down.

I have to say that I've never heard anything like the difference with cd player upgrades before.

Another thing, he green pens his cd's. I thought it was a load of bollox, but it makes a tangible difference to the sound of his system - made bugger all when I tried it with my Naim/Avondale/Dynaudio set-up.

Jez

Bring one around, I would like to hear a Theta they had a good reputation.
Keith.
Musical was it Coco, I am surprised it didn't make the DCS sound 'broken' !

Bring one around, I would like to hear a Theta they had a good reputation.
Keith.
!

I have two young children and no life, so unlikely to be travelling much at present!

Anyway, if I buy one, I'll happily post back my findings.

Gen V's were available for £750 on Audiogon a couple of years ago when the £ was humping the $. They get snapped up.

I'll see your two young children and raise you a third, I know what you mean about not getting out much, I have compared someolder dacs to more modern stuff and in the most part they haven't fared that well, but it is always interesting to hear stuff.
Keith.

Bring one around, I would like to hear a Theta they had a good reputation.
Keith.
Musical was it Coco, I am surprised it didn't make the DCS sound 'broken' !

Broken? No... I just found the Theta much more to my taste. That said, my current DAC *is* better.

Coco I am trying to eradicate all hifi cliches starting with 'musical and 'broken ' unless you have dropped it of course!
Keith.

I'll see your two young children and raise you a third, I know what you mean about not getting out much, I have compared someolder dacs to more modern stuff and in the most part they haven't fared that well, but it is always interesting to hear stuff.
Keith.

Ah, I'm in good company then!

I honestly thought that my cd would poo all over his, I was amazed. I've listened to plenty of DAC's before, just nothing like this, had a two box Micromega before and certainly in my system, the Rega is a lot better.

I see a Theta Prime 2 dac just sold on audiogon for 150 pounds. I think it included a separate theta transport!

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?dgtlconv&1261662089&/Theta-ds-pro-prime-ii-

I took my Rega Saturn round to my boss's house last night and was truly gobsmacked at the difference his 14 year old Theta DAC made to the performance of my cd player.

He has a valve system, modified Audionote and Art Audio with Lowther horns. I don't know whether there was just synergy with this system and the Theta , but the difference with and without his DAC was massive, my cd sounded as flat as a pancake and pretty uninspiring without and with, it just came alive, better in every single respect. The Theta was also fully balanced into his pre-amp, don't know how much difference that would make.

Anyway, as a result, I'm definately tempted to have a go with a second hand one.

Hi JT,

Over the last 14 years I've owned 3 different Theta DACs and the two changes were simply upgrades in the Theta range. (I had lusted after their products since hearing one of their earlier Gen 3 models and this had been whipped to a frenzy by a full audition of a Data Basic / DS Pro Generation V combination).

In 1995, made my first venture into the Theta world by buying a Theta Data Basic transport plus the Theta DSPro Progeny DAC. These two replaced a heavily tweaked Rotel RCD965BX and blew me away with the improvement.

Connections (limited by Progeny) were 75ohm coax S/PDIF between CDT & DAC and s/e RCA i/c between DAC & preamp.

After a couple of months, I had a call from the dealer to take in the Progeny for a no-charge software upgrade - which I did and this was the 'a' upgrade that was released on an EPROM and entailed a simple chip replacement.

The improvement this made belied the simplicity.

When - a few years later - this CDT/DAC combo were stolen during a burglary, the replacement (with cash injection) comprised a Theta Data Basic II plus a Theta DS Pro Prime IIa (already fitted with the new EPROM). The Prime DAC had balanced analog out, so moved from s/e RCA i/c to balanced XLRs.

Life was great! The improvements were significant

Subsequently, an acquaintance of mine found himself heading for divorce from the ultimate BWFH who, under the prenup, was demanding he sell his hifi, amongst which was an almost new Theta DS Pro Generation Va, which he offered to me for a very good price - and also threw in a Transparent AES/EBU digital i/c.

Life in Digital Music World became perfect!! So much so that my LP12 became virtually unused.

The Prime IIa was placed in storage as a backup.

Tracking the upgrade process from Progeny -> Prime II -> GenV it was simply a case of more of the same with each change.

If I had to describe the Theta 'sound' it would be:


Inviting
Involving
Not typically digital ('analogue' would be misleading)
More-ish
Satisfying

A good few years back, Theta's head honcho paid a visit to S. Africa and my local dealer set up an evening of snacks 'n drinks to allow us invited folk to meet and chat with Neil Sinclair, who turned out to be a genuine and self-effacing person with a genuine passion for music and saw technology purely as a means to an end - the music.

I have never regretted climbing on the Theta wagon and the only slight concern was the take over of Theta by ATI - but more linked to Neil's departure than the change.

Edit: Picture of source rack:

http://www.hififorum.co.uk/uploads/photos/27.jpg

Now, about that DSPro Generation VIII Series 2... Lotto!!!!

:cool:

I'll see your two young children and raise you a third, I know what you mean about not getting out much, I have compared someolder dacs to more modern stuff and in the most part they haven't fared that well, but it is always interesting to hear stuff.
Keith.

Hi PA,

I recently unearthed the stored Theta DS Pro Pime IIa to install it in my daughter's system as a DAC for my ex-Rotel DRP, only to find that it had died. I had no real reason to fix it (nor was there anyone close who could do it).

On a local audio forum one DIYer had put together a DIY DAC circuit based around the latest (at the time) Burr-Brown PCM1794A DAC chip and was offering to assemble at a very reasonable price using a case similar to that used for the Mose Hercules phono stage.

After some discussions, I handed over the Prime IIa to him to use as a case and to build this DIY DAC circuit into the casework.

When he had finished, he returned the case, now with the PCM1794A circuit, so we installed it side-by-side with the GenVa and sharing the Data Basic II transport - AES/EBU to GenVa and S/PDIF to PCM1794A DAC. Both DACs were connected using identical balanced XLR i/c to the preamp to allow simple A:B:A comparison.

I kept this configuration for a few months and invited around a few groups of similarly-minded audio types.

The consensus from all was that, although the PCM1794A sounded good, it did not quite match up to the GenVa (given the cost differential, no-one was that surprised).

The PCM1794A DAC eventually quit with a smell of overheated electronics so has once again been relegated to storage (I will have it repaired one day soon).

So, some of those well-regarded DACs from the 90s can still hold their own in today's world - mainly as they were very musical and did not strive for detail at music's expense.

:cool:

Thanks for the posts guys, really appreciated.

There is one on Ebay for £350, but I think that's too expensive, my boss thinks so anyway.

Sorry, I'm unfamiliar with sites other than PFM for second hand kit - any recommendations would be appreciated. One of my mates is just starting selling s/h stuff for James at TomTom, so I'll speak to him too, but I suspect that's a different market.

Jez

Devil, I take your point but there is far more to a dac than the chipset, it is always interesting to hear good equipment though of any vintage.
Keith.

I had a Databasic transport and ProBasic DAC for many years. It made very good music. I compared it to a CDX2/XPS and the Naim had a lot more detail, but overall I preferred the relaxed, spacious sound from the Theta combination. It is worth mentioning the Theta reclocker the TLC, especially with the Goliath power supply. They are the size of a packet of cigarettes and will work between any transport and any DAC. They clean up the sound very well indeed.

Nic P