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AudiogoN ForSale: Nakamichi Dragon CD - rare I haven't seen one of these for sale in a long while...

Yet Another Thread To Talk About Digital Cables. discuss.

Any impressions on the Twisted Pear Audio Current output DAC ? The COD - Current Ouput DAC

What's the best method of connecting transport to DAC via either spdif or aes/ebu encoding, in real life? I have the option of doing one of the following (from transport -> DAC): 1. BNC 75 -> RCA ~75 2. RCA ~75 -> RCA ~75 3. XLR 110 -> XLR 110 4. toslink -> toslink I have been going through my emag book and coax is theoretically the perfect medium at transmitting high-frequency signals over a length of 1M. I have been trying different combination with blue jeans cable, and they all sound different. So what's objectively the best connection in the real world?

I rarely post praises of commercial gear as a prefer to build my own, knowing that each component is used in the correct topology is important to me. I am no shill as you can see from my 2000 posts on head-fi. I have to say that this 19MK3 is an outstanding piece of gear. They have done three things extremely well: 1. PMD100 - I'll say it till my death it is the pinnacle of the digital golden age. One day these will be worth $1000 a chip, mark my word. 2. PCM1704K - Erno Borbely told me personally that this is the finest DAC chip ever made, some would argue the AD8162(Jocko) or the PCM63K, but regardless it is a much better design than sigma-delta chip…

I'm selling my NAD redbook player, but have been interested in one of the Oppo universals for a while just to give SACD a shot. However, I know nothing really about SACD. Is it all hi rez? Will there be a noticeable difference in a two-channel headphone rig? And, perhaps most importantly, do SACD players play nice with standalone DACses? Educate The Monkey.

From: Electrocompaniet Introduces the ECR 1?A High-Performance, Do-All Tuner | AVguide "The Norwegian high-end audio firm Electrocompaniet has just announced its stunningly versatile ECR 1 tuner, which

As I am further developing my computer as a source set up I have come to the realization that placing a Mac Mini in the rack might be my best option. Right now I can run audio from my Mac Pro or my Macbook Pro via, USB, Firewire or AES/EBU from the Pro. Unfortunately I do not want to give up the Macbook Pro as my listening room computer and the Mac Pro is several rooms away. My plan is to put the Mac Mini in the rack with iTunes and Amarra installed. Then I believe I can control the Mac Mini either by my laptop or with my Touch if I leave Amarra up as it interfaces with the Rowmote App. I could then take the Squeezebox out of the system and run USB or Firewire ou…

For all you guys who are banned: Granodemostasa, another fellow Berkeley Head-Case'r, has graciously dropped off his Lavry DA10 for me to compare against my newly acquired Stello DP200. I think this will be a good comparison because both units are DAC/headamp combos, both can act as a pre-amp. That's where the similarities end. The Lavry is a non-upsampling DAC employing op-amps in Class-A mode in its analog output stage, while the Stello is a upsampling DAC (up to 192, with an option to bypass upsampling altogether) using fully-discrete, Class-A, balanced output stage. The Stello has a remote-control while the Lavry does not. Some pictures will better illustrate th…

His budget is 350 bucks... I don't think he minds camping ebay/audiogon, but if its something that is immediately available then that would be more ideal. I know sony direct drive for cheap bucks is a pretty good deal so maybe a list of models/links for those would be perfect.

Ok folks, I've been lurking for the past 2 weeks trying to find presumably better DAC for my current setup which is : Notebook --> Pico DAC-->WA6 or Gilmore Lite -->MS1/HF2/701/ESW9. I have been looking hard at the following: 1. Benchmark Dac1 2. Buffalo - used 3. Grace M902 - out of budget but I try to find used 4. Gamma 2 - used 5. Lavry DA11 My road map in the distant future is to upgrade to balanced so I thought I would like to start with DAC first. I understand when I'm ready to upgrade to balance I would have to get rid/recable of almost all my current headphone/amp. On the other hand, I'm also looking hard at ATH W5000. So should I use the cash…

I hadn't come across this until today and, albeit well above my price point, it looks pretty close to the single-box, hi-resolution solution of my computer audio dreams. 32-bit DACs; USB, optical and coax digital ins; native DSD, DSD-to-PCM, PCM-to-DSD; 32-bit digital volume control. Here's the marketing fluff. Let's hope this starts a trend!

Can find absolutely nothing else about this new hawt new box apart from the clip on Simaudio's own site, but thought it was worth posting just to give Dinny a stiffy. Looks dangerous, and expensive. But a kickass (universal?) player with properly implemented digital input would be pretty damn sweet. And eight 32-bit DACs per channel is, like, a whole bucket of bits man!

what is the reasoning behind using a belt-driven cd transport which differentiates it from a direct/gear-driven transport? is it one of those "isolation" things? which i guess leads to the next question... i understand when it comes to tubes and cartridges, but how can minor/micro vibration have any affect on digital? thanks, mjb

Might be useful to a few folks if the price is not too outrageous.

I'm looking to upgrade my office set up from an aging bithead. I live in a remote location, and my chances of auditioning either the Pico or D10 are nonexistent. In terms of pricing, a D10 is roughly equivalent to the Pico DAC only. The Pico DAC is an option, as I have a mini^3 I could use. On paper, the D10 is the better deal, as it comes with an amp and line out along with optical and coax inputs. It will be a lot less faffing around, and will be more portable with the built in amp stage. I've read one review that gives the edge to the Pico DAC if you are using usb, but rates the D10 as slightly better using an optical input. I will mainly use the usb inp…

Hello Head-case, As you can see, I am new here but I have a question on a vintage DAC that will probably be better answered here than at the other place. I recently came across someone local selling a Sonic Frontiers SFD-2 DAC (MK1) locally for a decent price (around USD$900). This DAC is around 15 years old and got glowing reviews from Stereophile when it was released: Stereophile: Sonic Frontiers SFD-2 D/A processor I was thinking of buying it tomorrow evening but I was wondering if anyone here knows any reason NOT to get it? Can anyone guess how it will compare with modern DACs?

Saw this on the other side. Specs are pretty much identical to the existing 306 Pro, except you can haz toobs. 306: 303T:

Finally got my Mini-DAC, which directly replaces my old Lavry DA10. The change was based mostly on a single recommendation by grawk. He didn't adorn his recommendation with audiophile jargon or any other verbal acrobatics for that matter. It was quite blunt, along the lines of "the Lavry sounds like shit, the Mini-DAC sounds good". Somehow that convinced me. And now that I'm here listening to my new setup: Beck - Sea Change to Mini-DAC to SRM-T1S to LNS... I'm really happy that I took grawk's word. The Mini-DAC sounds like the notes have been covered with alternating layers of candy coating and heroin. The soundstage is tighter, more realistic, more intimate. The b…

I've been looking through 10 pages of google results and nothing. If there is a webpage somewhere that lists sources and their respective DAC chips I'd love ot have a look. Or if someone here owns a Marantz vc5200 and knows the answer that'd be great. I got this 5disc player back in 2001, loved it, and was never curious about what's inside. But recently I crawled out of the rock I was living under and bought an entry set: hd650, gilmore lite, pico dac. So while I'm biting nails through this 3-4 week wait time until shipment I research what I have, feed my curiosity, and try not to bother justin everyday ..wasn't sure if I should have put this post in the "Genera…

So, I'm looking to grab some sort of external sound card for a number of purposes. My requirements are: PC based External >= 24/192 I need to be able to use this with RMAA, SpeakerWorkshop, LSPCad, etc. hence the PC requirement. The 24/192 is a requirement on the analog inputs for things like RMAA and needle-drops eventually. Budget is flexible One that caught my eye so far is the Edirol FA-66, but I'd be interested in seeing what else would qualify.

So the Assemblage D2D-1 has a proprietary cable that feeds the Sonic Frontiers SFD-2 mk3. Does anyone know if it is also compatible with the Sonic Frontiers Processor 3? The Sonic Frontiers SFT-1 also has a proprietary cable that works with the first one, anyone know if it works with the second as well?

Because through a series of strange machinations a Revox B-77 and several tapes have found their way here free gratis. I'm reading google things and it came with the manual and stuff. Is this a format worth getting into?

Recently upgraded my DAC from Stello to MSB Power DAC (no USB, but with remote volume control). Some basic ergonomic gaffes: - No volume indicator - Volume setting isn't saved after unplugging the DAC, and the default seems to be minimum volume - No mute button - Remote control's power button doesn't do anything (the DAC's power button switches between pure battery to battery + charger) Also, the volume control is digital, so I have it at max whenever possible. Tested using either HP-2 + ECSS or Tetra 120U + Gainclone. As of now, I only have my integrated sound card's digital out (waiting for a decently implemented and priced USB->SPDIF converter). Sound…

Guys, I'm looking for a way to use my trusty Bantam DAC on a pretty minimalistic system running Arch. Requirement is not to be gnome or KDE based and I'd prefer something command-line oriented. Anyone have any experience with the following: C* Music Player is a very feature-rich ncurses-based music player. MOC (Music On Console) is an ncurses console audio player with support for the MP3, Ogg, and WAV formats. ncmpc is a curses client for mpd. ncmpcpp is an almost exact clone of ncmpc with some new features. Sonata is an elegant GTK+ music client for mpd. cplay is a curses front-end for various audio players.