Hi. I'm not too sure how to write this mini review but here goes. It's not going to be a Stereophile or Absolute Sounds type but I just want to tell you why I am so happy.
I spoke to Sarah a little while ago and ordered a Mastering Buffer BII after a few things I had heard about it on the chatternet. The unit arrived a few days ago and apart from being quite heavy it is very well styled and built. My CD player is pretty decent and cost me about £1200 - the Cyrus CDi.
I tried a few DACs in the past ranging from the Cambridge DAC Magic to the Musical Fidelity M6SR. All of them were very good. In fact the Cambridge was the one that surprised me the most but they all made the CDi better by a decent margin.
OK..fast forward to me not actually buying a DAC and instead using my gut instinct and looking at the whest Mastering Buffer BII. As soon as it went into my system I knew it was right. I mean there was so much more detail, separation of instruments, a bigger soundstage and it sounded real. That was using the whest supplied interconnect which I was told is cheap but good enough to get you going. I'll swap it out soon.
OK. The worst part. My hifi buddy uses a Moon 650D CD/DAC which is about £7K and I have always wanted to get to that level. Well I took my Cyrus CDi/ whest MB BII around to Mark's place and after 1 hour of warming up started our game of comparing. EVERY SINGLE TIME we played the Cyrus/MB II combination it was like we were suddenly listening to a real performance. There was so much more going on. I mean the Moon 650D is well regarded but the 650D sounded like crap compared to my Cyrus/MB BII. Mark told me afterwards that 'when' he sells his Moon 650D he'll have change left over from 'downgrading financially' to a MUCH better sound hahahaha
I am over the moon with this Mastering Buffer BII. Now to look at getting a whestTHREE Discrete for my VPI Prime Signature turntable.
Cyrus CDi/ Mastering Buffer BII/ Music First Preamp/ PSi A21M monitors
Clive Clifford - Portsmouth UK
