Pulse versus Zenith MK 3

[ThriftyAudio]

I currently have a Pulse with a Phoenix USB and a NAS. The music from my SACD player sounds much better than the same ripped files from the NAS.

Would a Zenith MK 3 approach, or meet, the quality from a Marantz 8003 SACD (old)? How would the Zenith compare to the Pulse in regards to streaming which is 90%+ of my digital listening. Is it equivalent, better than, or less than? The NG series is out of my price range.

Thanks.

 

[ThriftyAudio]

@Stephen Healy Do you have information regarding the streaming quality of the Pulse relative to the Zenith MK 3? I would keep the Phoenix USB to work with the Zenith.

 

[Stephen Healy]

It is relatively equivalent, I would say the PULSE does not outperform the ZENith in this regard and the PhoenixUSB brings the performance up on both of them quite a bit. The ZENith gives you a much wider feature set and give your local files better performance.

 

[Kirk]

It is relatively equivalent, I would say the PULSE does not outperform the ZENith in this regard and the PhoenixUSB brings the performance up on both of them quite a bit. The ZENith gives you a much wider feature set and give your local files better performance.

Is that re: SQ? If so, that would be quite surprising considering the Pulsar is a dedicated streamer and is newer, simpler and has a different PSU.

 

[Stephen Healy]

The original question did not pertain to PULSAR, but to the PULSE. PULSAR is indeed an entirely different beast, with significant improvements across the board with chassis, psu architecture, power regulation and reclocking. You would not need the PhoenixUSB, however, if getting the PULSAR, or you could simply order the PULSAR without the PhoenixUSB Lite module prefitted.
If you did want to keep your existing PhoenixUSB, then that combined with the ZENith Mk3 would be reasonably comparable to a PULSAR.

 

[Kirk]

The original question did not pertain to PULSAR, but to the PULSE. PULSAR is indeed an entirely different beast, with significant improvements across the board with chassis, psu architecture, power regulation and reclocking. You would not need the PhoenixUSB, however, if getting the PULSAR, or you could simply order the PULSAR without the PhoenixUSB Lite module prefitted.
If you did want to keep your existing PhoenixUSB, then that combined with the ZENith Mk3 would be reasonably comparable to a PULSAR.

Apologies, misread the post. I appreciate your reply though as I've just bought a Pulsar to replace my Zenith MK3.