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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

Although at $5k it's a pricey bugger, it's still not a complete outrage relative to a lot of the top shelf stuff. But what's interesting is the approach. Seems new and completely different to me, but maybe that's just what they want me to think. I'd be interested in knowing what the technically inclined among us (i.e., those who know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to these things) might think... http://www.parasound.com/news.php

Contemplating a source specifically for a SRM-007/Lambda Pro/Sig setup. Looking at the normal suspects - DAC1, DA100 Sig and DA10, which I had previously. Would be used with a computer (with USB & optical) or through a Squeezebox. Haven't used a dedicated CDP for years. Does anyone have suggestions otherwise or comments on that trilogy of choices? Find the Stello interesting, but reports of a darker signature may not make create the best synergy. Anyway appreciative for your advice. May get a chance to try, but looking for longer term impressions, especially with electrostatics. Figure budget $800-1,000. And no that doesn't extend to 'twice that.'

This may be interesting, thoughts: http://www.psaudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/DirectStream-DAC-white-paper.pdf http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2014/02/ps-audio-to-rescue-pcm-with-directstream-perfectwave-dac/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ps-audio-to-rescue-pcm-with-directstream-perfectwave-dac http://www.monoandstereo.com/2014/02/ps-audio-directstream-dac.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+monoandstereo%2FHOym+%28MONO+AND+STEREO+Ultra+High-End+Audio+Magazine%29

NAD's Hybrid Digital DAC Amplifiers, especially the 388 look awesome. What do people think of them? https://nadelectronics.com/product/c-388-hybrid-digital-dac-amplifier/

I can find very little about the Stax DAC Talent online. Has anyone here heard it and could give some impressions? I found someone selling it for about $300 U.S. dollars. Is this a reasonable price? After hearing all the great comments about vintage DACs I am interested in getting one. I listen through my Luxman amp to way too many Stax. I'm looking forward to your comments.

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3121804&postcount=5 Cmon now. Granted I don't own an iPod, but why is this the current thought: that an iPod can be an absolute reference source. I'd like to think my $400 DAC sounds much better. What's the deal here? Do these fanboys really believe their iPod is this good?

The AKM 32bit Dac is interesting to me as I commonly see people refering to it as a wonderful sounding Dac. Also to add that it seems to be found in a couple very high end sources such as the APL NWO 3.0 GO and Esoteric D-05 Dac. I myself have auditioned the APL NWO 3.0 and I do realize that it has something insane like twenty 32bit converters in each channel, but I cannot forget that smooth yet detailed sound I enjoyed so much. This is why I want to audition the D-05 and APL Denon 3910.(with the AKM dac) I have a couple questions about sources that would help clarify my understanding. First, im sure that its not just the dac in a source that determines the sound qual…

I am very happy with my PS Audio DLIII, but I was thinking about someday doing the stage 3 or 4 Cullen mods to my PS Audio DLIII - PS Audio DAC, GCHA, GCPH modifications - Cullen Circuits It wont void the warranty and reviews have been very positive. But someone else recommended another company that did his PSA DLIII mods: Reference Audio Mods, cd player mods,audio mods, audio modifications Do any of you guys have any experience with either company and have any opinions you could share? I'm posting here because at the other forum I expect to get too many conflicting thoughts and opinions from people who have never even heard the mods. Like I said, I am very hap…

I've got an HP G56 laptop (no digital out), and I'd like an easy (read cheap) solution to route all of my iTunes music into my DAC. My Adcom GDA 700 DAC has toslink, S/PDIF, and AES/EBU, but no USB. Is there an outboard soundcard of some type that would work well for me? Or another solution that is cost effective, as I do plan on getting the Cambridge iPod dock at some point in the near future, and won't need the laptop at that point. I'm not up to date on CPU based music systems.

Actual impressions to come later, only a pic for now. Plinius is less deep and slightly shorter, and the curves are sharper on it.

I am looking for measurements of the voltage out level of various sources, commercial and otherwise. Nominally, sources are "line level", but this turns out to be a term without a lot of real adherence. Consumer gear is said to be at -10dBV, which equates with ~0.316V RMS, but most sources seem to run hotter than that. Pro gear has a US standard (+4dBu or ~1.228V RMS which is 1.78dBV) and a German one (+6dBu, 1.55V RMS or 3.78dBV). Notice that V RMS, dBV, dBu, and dB are all different things -- you can convert between some of them at dB dBu dBFS dBV to volts conversion - calculator volt volts to dBu and dBV dB mW - convert dB volt convertor converter calculation onli…

Oops, that's Nylon Jungle Ahhhh the analog sounds of a rock being scraped over a piece of pressed plastic. Can't beat it. I was bound to get here at some point. I've resisted it for awhile, mostly due to cost and upkeep hassle and the pesky need to flip over something when 1/2 the album is over. But a friend mentioned the new Rega P1 turntable, it's great price and the fact that it's plug and play...so off I went to the local Hi-Fi shop to greet my smiling Rega dealer. Of course so thread is complete without pics: This is my first real dive into hi-end vinyl and it's a budget entry for sure, but so far, I gotta say, not bad at all. I'm run…

Ars Technica just published a salutary article on studio efforts to improve the sound quality of iTunes and other digital tracks. http://arstechnica.c...he-ipod-age.ars I'm glad there's good news about digital, for once. There are still many technical limitations, e.g., the iPhone still has much less storage space at 64GB than the iPod Classic at 160GB. Each portable can only hold a small slice of a decent music library encoded at low compression or in lossless format – never mind high-resolution files. There's also the tradeoff between battery life, device size and price. The HiFiMAN HM-602, for example, only has 8GB. You're really sacrificing capacity for qu…

Any thoughts on the upcoming Schiit Audio Gungnir dac? Is their "adapaticlock" circuit really that unique or just good marketing? The rest of the dac (upgradable dac and usb) and fully discrete balanced output looks pretty good.

5.1 Headphone experience *Foobar configuration for all stereo music files* - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio Sorry if the H-Scroll is a little off here. I hope this isn't bad form for me to post in regards to a thread at Head Fi like this and someone else's work but I certainly give Graphicism at Head-Fi full credit for this and if he posts here under a different screen name than kudos. I wanted to post this here just to match notes with the regulars around here and see if anyone else has tried this and what they think of it up or down. I went into it skeptical just because I tend to be pretty leery about post processing an…

So I'm finally getting off my lazy ass to seriously start planning for my wireless music setup. My question is, disregarding SQ difference since this will be used only for casual listening via speakers, what does Squeezebox have over Airport Express? I will be using it to feed a DAC via one of my Macs, most likely my iBook, and just about all of my music files are in ALAC or AIFF. Squeezebox sure do look pretty, especially in all black, but is it worth 3x that of Airport Express for my application?

Looks like a cheap fun way to mess around with DSD. http://www.ifi-audio.com/en/Nano_iDSD.html

http://picasaweb.google.com/asebastian2/DoubleCrown/photo#5107114672554852322 So pretty! These are the ultra rare and highly acclaimed double crown version of the 20 year old R2R non-OS Phillips TDA1541A chip. Haven't been tested by my DAC builder to see if they are legit ;p But hopefully they are! They use this chip (only 1 or 2 though) in the highest end Zanden dac and various old school players like the Marantz CD-7. Apparently crazies in Japan build dacs with 32-64 of these chips per channel. Very pricey at $100-$150 if you can find them ;p Asebastian sourced them for me and is planning on sticking them in a modified version of this dac: http://www.ecdesi…

Last Tuesday DHL came to my door with heavy package, so, after two weeks waiting glad I was... I had day off from work, but was to busy with my son to set it up directly, however open up anyway to make first check. It was very interesting for my boy as well, cos he loves all that buttons. First impression wasnt shocking, cos I have seen this mashine in real life before, but getting one myself still exciting after all. Build quality is good, nothing fancy, just simply good. Metal case, massive metal front panel and some useful stuff on it, like display and buttons...:)Display light is not irritating at all, mild green color with quite huge indication of what happenin…

My Linn Classik appears to have died and is throwing an error code (might try to get it fixed but Linn no longer fixes, likely a bunch of failed capacitors). I would love a direct replacement with tuner, cd and amplifier but honestly we don't listen to the radio anymore and I have sources for everything else. The only think that has all that is the Denon CEOL RCD-N10. Looking around it seems like the Yamaha Integrated amps are my usual "wire with gain" type of thing so I was looking at the Yamaha A-S801BL. There is also an interesting NAD device but their software might have issues and not sure of sound. Any recommendations or experiences?

I thought about putting this in the DIY forum but mostly it's about a modded new source, so here it is. Full credit goes to Brain Donegan (of Twisted Pear Audio) who showed me one of these when I was at his house picking up some other parts. He also pointed me to the thread at DIY Audio where some guys had figured out a nifty little mod for the units, more on that in a minute. In stock form this is essentially a poor man's Squeezebox. It's setup to work with a MusicMatch library file and allows you to stream mp3's from your PC wirelessly and connect it to your amplification device of choice via the unit's analog outputs. Not all that special until you factor in three …

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 recently had to open my Plinius CD-101 (a physical issue with the transport developed) and thought I'd take additional pics of the internals. First though some specs: - DACs: TI PCM1704 (2) (not the 4 required for true-balanced dual-differential output) - Op-amps: unknown, but ECE EDR201A1200 in analog output stage - Unknown: National LM317T (2) and LM337 (2) - Transport: Asus CD-S520B2 Previous set of internal pics posted on Head-Fi here: Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio - View Single Post - The Plinius CD-101 has landed - and is staying

My heavily modded Philips 963SA was acting up so I just pulled the trigger on the Music Hall CD25.2 player that PartsConnexion had in their autumn sale for $499.00 w/free shipping It has their level 1 mods: RCA jacks upgraded to Vampire Feet upgraded to sorbothane Chassis deadening Cap and resistors in output stage upgraded to audiophile level Output op-amps upgraded to OPA-627 Diodes and caps in PSU upgraded as well. Will post pics when it arrives