While looking around for potential candidates for new source, happened upon Perotta Consulting for Northstar M192. Just wondering if anyone's bought anything from them? It seems they have a demo Northstar unit, and would like to buy it if it's a good price, but didn't know if they were well known folks or not.

I bought my Esoteric from them, and they are good people to deal with. I think Reks got his Northstar from them too iirc

Cool, thanks for the info. I think it's going to be between Northstar and Electrocompaniet. Bit funny since they almost use identical chip sets - CS8420/CS4396 in Northstar and CS8420/CS4397 in Electrocompaniet.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the Northstar single-ended only? I think both your vaporware Singlepower and Beta are going to be single-ended so maybe that makes perfect sense and won't have you itching to go balanced...

as far as I know the northstar DAC is single ended. But they came out with a single box player that has balanced outs....

http://www.northstar.it/northstar_it.html?audio=sapphirecd.html

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the Northstar single-ended only? I think both your vaporware Singlepower and Beta are going to be single-ended so maybe that makes perfect sense and won't have you itching to go balanced...

That was part of my thinking, though the pull of ECD1 is rather strong. I just love that faceplate!

everyone thinks that, but it's not true!

HAHAHA!

Of course, the problem with Northstar is that the damn faceplate won't match with anything!

Just checked, and it looks like they carry silver and black. Hmm, they seem to have demo unit for both the transport and the DAC. Interesting....

Yeah, I like that funky finish, but it just won't match with anything.

actually, it comes in black, silver, and the cool jeff rowlandesque face plate (like what i had, and what jpak has now), though i don't know what Perotta carries...

Oh cool I thought mine was the silver version?

Haj: it's a sweet DAC, I've said it too many times. mjg got one recently though I haven't seen his impressions.

Well, the Perotta price wasn't as good as I had hoped, so Northstar is out, I think, unless a good deal shows up on the Gon.

There's a Wadia25 on Agon right now, come on, take the plunge!

Gotta wait till the payment for DV-50 gets here anyways. Depending on my other sales (Ergo2, RP21, and bunch of SACD's when I get around to them), I may go back to the original plan and wait for a good deal on Prima SE. Now, gotta go pack to drive 7 hours to Buffalo for a wedding. Wee.

If you were to snag the Northstar, what were you planning to use as the source? The Esoteric?

If you were to snag the Northstar, what were you planning to use as the source? The Esoteric?

No, he sold the esoteric. If he got the Northstar he'd still need a transport.

Since it is more than likely that I'd be getting a DAC, I'll be using my Philips 963SA as a transport until I get myself a better transport.