Cary–ADAM–WyWires

“I recognize those speakers,” I thought to myself as I entered Cary Audio’s room. They were ADAM Audio’s Column MK3 towers ($7500/pair), that Kalman Rubinson had very favorably reviewed in August 2012. New in the room was Cary’s promising DAC-100T tubed D/A processor ($2995), which uses an ESS Sabre 9023 DAC chip with a USB input using an XMOS USB chip running Gordon Rankin’s Streamlength asynchronous code. There are also two each coaxial and TosLink S/PDIF inputs and both balanced and single-ended analog outputs.

The rest of the system featured Cary’s SLP-05 preamp and SA500.1 class-D 500W monoblocks, hooked up with WyWires. “Silky highs,” read my notes, as I listened to a Diana Krall recording. (For the record, I like Diana Krall.)

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