Home Source Components

If I were to but the new Ayre DAC (with Wavelength tech.), what advatage does playing from my Apple hard drive (Apple Lossless) vs. a red book CD in a Marantz SA11S2 modified?

What's interesting about this one is that it does HDMI -- I wonder how far off we are from one that can be set to record?

Around the time I first joined over there it seems like there were fewer choices in DACs. Benchmark and Lavry seemed to be the go-to options, though there were certainly other contenders: Apogee, HeadRoom, Grace, Bel Canto, Monarchy, Channel Islands, and others, as well as various experiments in NOS: Ack!, Lite, etc. Then came Zhaolu, and it seemed to usher in a new micro-era of willingness to tread away from the beaten path. Audio-GD's extensive DAC lineup is a good example of the proliferation of options these days. I really have no sense for what the standouts are anymore (among similarly priced products). I'm not sure review reading is terribly illuminating, sinc…

Hi, I am considering abandoning my computer as main transport, and would like to find a hd based one. I saw a few for sale around here, but I am wondering which of those would do bitperfect digital out, as well as have decent jitter rejection performances. My source is a non-upsampling Melior Bitstream, and I would use coaxial wire. Thanks for any inputs you can provide.

Well after some futzing I have modified Exact Audio Copy to check to see if a file has HDCD Data and if it does use this: HDCD Software Decoder [Archive] - Doom9's Forum or: Index of /~cjk32/hdcd to convert it to a 24 bit file and then encode to a lossless WMA at with 24 bits. The files aren't much bigger than the 16 bit files because most of the extra bits are zeros anyway. Pretty cool Can I hear the difference? haven't tried yet but I certainly like knowing that I can get everything out of the HDCDs. Only problem now is that I will have to go through and re-rip my HDCDs.

This isn't a definitive tip, but I think I might have gotten the HDCD player I was looking for – free of charge. Most of us know that HDCD technology was developed by Pacific Microsonics and later acquired by Microsoft. What I didn't know was that my laptop (ASUS N56VZ-DS71) was capable of playing HDCD... my old desktop system used a Sound Blaster Audigy, which was a decent sound card for its time. This new laptop uses a Realtek High Definition Audio codec, which most of us would laugh at, since it's been the default audio solution in millions of systems for about the last decade... however, I believe it has full support for 24-bit audio. To enable HDCD pla…

I thought this great little device deserves a thread, the pre-order with an intro price is now on: HeadAmp Pico Upsampling USB DAC - Pre-Order Now at intro price - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio

I think it may finally be time to do away with CDs for the meet rig. Plus, shipping the CD player back and forth to meets is costly and takes up expensive table space, and they eventually break. Time to go DAC-only. At RMAF, i did have a few people come up to me wanting to play their files off SD cards or USB flash drives, and I was not equipped to do this with my CD player...another DAC advantage as I know some of them support this. Something small and lightweight would also be a plus as it makes travel/shipping easier. any recommendations?

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I`d appreciate some help I am looking for a usb powered 'dac/amp' to feed a pair of srh1540 headphones, low volume listening, no background hiss and sounds good with linux (youtube, podcasts, radio, cd`s ripped to flac/wav). I currently use the motherboards onboard audio which is a 'TI ne5532' amp chip. This does well with very low background noise but audio could be bettered. have just been using a soekris dac1101 but find it to have audible background hiss when outputing audio (this cuts off shortly after no audio is being pushed). budget of $800 or less top of my list to try currently is an 'IFI Micro iDSD Black Label', thoughts on th…

Well I come home from work today and I see a small wood crate on my doorstep and it turns out to be my new Resolution Audio Opus 21....

I have to say, I thought there wouldn't be a huge difference over DirectStream to my Opus, and it isn't a huge difference, but ASIO sounds noticeably better than DS.

So I've been giving a lot of thought to my home rig recently and given my problems with CD/DVD players I'm thinking that the Squeezebox might be the answer to my prayers. My rig is never going to be anything other than upper Mid-Fi (at best) so I'm not shooting for the ultimate sound but would like it to be as good as possible while fitting into the constraints of my situation. So my questions are as follows: 1. Tell me about your setup with it: advantages/disadvantages? likes/dislikes? 2. Is the internal DAC half-decent or should I keep my Monica2 to use with it. 3. Are there other alternatives worth looking at? I love the idea of the Olive Music stuff but they…

just as my title, can anyone give me some ideas about detecting the lifetime's of tube inside the audio aero DAC. From what i know, the lifetime of the tube is around 10000 However, the original owner used it for 1 year and 2 months. So i think I can only use it for 10 more months.Is it right? do you know any ways to prolong the lifetube? when i read the instruction, they advise me to let the DAC on all the time . If i turn it off, I need to wait 1 or 2 days to make the DAC do its best when the tube died, where can i contact to have the replacement? thanks

With my 4-channel Beta22 being assembled by thrice and only having had an H120 fed piccolo dac then my current H120 or usb fed mini-dac I have a question. How do usb fed dacs compare to cd sources ? I am particularly curious about the balanced redbook cd sources in the sub $2000 and sub $1000 price brackets either new, secondhand or pre-built diy.

Read some comments about the dac being especially good in the Pico. The real star of the unit. What's peoples experience trying it with their headamps etc. I thought of hooking it up with a glite for a nice little combo, but maybe the lite would be more sideways than better than the internal amp.

I got an HRT Music Streamer II for my parents Mac Mini. Just needed a cheap DAC and wanted one that didn't need a power supply. In theory, this DAC fits the bill. In practice, that's not the case. For anyone out there considering the HRT, be forewarned that you very likely will need to run it off a powered USB hub. It appears to simply draw to much power to run reliabily out of a 'puter's USB ports. There are a bunch of posts about this on the internets, but I figured I'd give a heads up here, too.

I went to my local audio shop and had an audition of the dCS Paganini player (transport, DAC, and clock), which is about $50,000. It was hooked up to Audio Research HD220 amps and Sonus faber Elipsa speakers. I had a nice, extended listening session by myself in a properly set up room in a comfy chair. It was a beautiful, natural sound. I really thought this combo broke through the technological limits of previous disc players. The $50,000 question is: can this be done in a less expensive way in a single box? I played the following pieces on it: Anna Netrebko - Sempre Libera, SACD layer Verdi - La Traviata (E strano! E Strano! - Sempre libera), I haven't ever …

In all honesty, I had all but decided to snag an Apogee Mini-Dac for the office setup but was having little luck finding one at a price I could live with. Not sure why, but I began thinking about a piece of gear that had really excited me when it first came out. Just had other things more pressing so I didn't pull the trigger then. This time I just couldn't resist it. Didn't really need it, but darned if I'm not tickled that I have it. Best purchase I've made in quite some time. I'll get around to listening to my FLAC files sooner or later, but right now, I'm just loving the Internet Radio! What a big ol' world we live in!!

Ok it all started with the desire to get away from browsing 2000 plus cds and the desire to have it all computer browsable and searchable. Then came the transporter, cosecant (god the margin on that thing), various dacs with usb>spidf convertors (do they all suck) Then the software Now it's back to the hardware and dang if an SSD isn't a freaking huge improvement, please call the cult extraction team now. Compared the the steaming pile of shit otherwise know as my DROBO, moving my 24 bit Beatles and 24/96 HD tracks stuff to the SSD was a fairly impressive improvement (or I am ready for me meds) Anyone else take the leap to an SSD and hear a difference

So a few weeks ago I had the chance to get together with some folks and listen to some nice vinyl rigs. Crap, I'm now ruined, because I've now heard what vinyl can really do, and it's goddamn scary how good it is. What was most shocking to me was the soundstage and the amount of low level details. With vinyl, I could be practically anywhere in the room (other than right next to a speaker or something absurd like that) and the soundstaging would still be as good or better than sitting in the sweetspot with CDs. In the sweetspot, it's like there's no speakers in the room, even with non-audiophile records like a 30 year old Bob Marley LP. In terms of detail resolution it was…

I agreed to trade my RSA XR-10B for a Koetsu Rosewood Signature Platinum cartridge, which arrived yesterday for a trial before I ship out the phono stage. I gritted my teeth and decided that, dammit, the first cartridge I ever install might as well be a $6,000 wood cartridge without a cantilever cover for protection! The cart was re-tipped already by van den Hul due to a defect that was original, so you will see the sticker in place on the cart. I had a couple beers to steady the nerves, and spoke with my life coach, JP Numbers, to get some perspective and some tips on how not to break off the tip of this beautiful creation. After various oaths and regrets that I …

Hello all, I am a newcomer to the forum. This would be my 1st post. My name is Adam. I enjoy long walks on the beach. LOL. J/k. Anyway, I use Audio Alchemy gear for my digital front end. I am using a AA DTI-32PRO with a DDE v3.0. I use a Rotel transport (not high end but no analog output). At this time I'm using coax cables with BNC connectors to connect the 2 AA products. My AA owner's manual claims that the I2S bus is the BEST way to connect these units. Well, I bought these units used and I do not currently possess a I2S cable. I was wondering if anyone on here knows where I can get my hands on one.?? I feel I'm not getting the most out of this gear and am …

I know about the famous Philips transport and other stuff that this player offer, but is this the end? I mean, if we are talking about sound only, what would you do? What other choices up there, which are on the same level. Meaning that CD94mkII in very good condition only. THX8)