Home Source Components

Ok, so my wife is tired of all my listening with open cans in the living room so I am starting to think about moving everything into the second bedroom/office so she doesn't have to go into our bedroom to watch TV. I will likely get a nice club chair and ottoman and my plans are to either replace the Denon with a different DVD player or replace the Denon with a different CDP. The Denon has a pretty decent DAC in it but I know I could do better. Given the expenses of everything else I'd like to keep it under $500. Any advice would be appreciated.

Size is getting to be important and looking for a small cheap CDP with digital outs. Coming to you all for help. Used fine. Haven't had luck finding much, but something along the lines of this would work. Otherwise seems to be more DVD players (though not always with displays) in this range. Basically going for a Squeezebox/Lavry/GS-1 rig so trying to keep width near or less than 10". And Dusty Approved Black. Anyone know of any CD models I should consider or DVD players usable with an external display? If only my DVD-2900 was about a quarter its size.

My apologies if this has been posted before, but hadn't seen much info on this one: [/snip] [The dock features] Analog Devices AD21369 32-bibit floating-point digital signal processing core and 96kHz/24-bit converters for analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog, resulting in a 110dB dynamic range with distortion of under .004 percent. The dock will also include DSP technologies for improving sound quality: Adaptive Dynamics (restores the sound quality of compressed audio), X-Matrix (virtual surround sound for two speakers or headphones), and Extrapolator, which turns the iPod's stereo signal to 5.1- or 7.1-channel sound. All of these signal processors have separ…

I'm in the market for a proper (i.e. non-iPod) source, and I was hoping you guys could help me out. My current home rig consists of a Dynahi, Millett, and RS-1s (with said iPod as source). The Channel Islands Audio VDA-1 has been suggested by a couple of people as being good value on the used market, and I'm currently in touch with someone selling one with the VAC-1 and "Revelation Audio Labs" cable for around $400. I have been doing some DAC research on head-fi, but it is hard to get impressions of the VDA-1 vs. other DACs, as it's discontinued. The price is a little steep, but a bit better than you might think, as the seller is also Canadian (I avoid 14% tax and $25…

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…

Just caught this on computeraudiophile's site. I've got ayrewave, amarra, I've used pure music and twilight and this one is nice. I just drag and drop the cd I want to play from my music folder in itunes and it loads right up. Has memory play and auto sample rate change as well, best of all it is open source and free for the moment at least. http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/New-OSX-Opensource-audiophile-player-Audirvana

No doubt there will be plenty of announcements at CES 2012 of interest to us, so I thought I'd start a thread to keep track of the sources announced at the show . Who knows, maybe we can encourage Tyll, or other visitors to get a closer look for us. I'll start off with something that might interest Dinny CES 2012: Arcam to launch £2000 FMJ D33 DAC With the market now full of new-generation digital audio devices and sources, Arcam is proud to introduce its latest and highest performing DAC to date, the D33 SuperDAC. Using state of the art dual Burr Brown PCM1792, 24bit / 192kHz converters (one per channel), twin toroidal transformers in the power …

Got some pics of my black D02 which is on it's way to me, hopefully it will arrive in time for our Maritime Provinces meet.

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…

I've owned the VDA2+VAC1 for about a year now, and there are two criticisms from The Great DAC Search thread that I agree with: that the rendering of more complex passages can be somewhat "messy", and a little 'raw' sounding from my perspective; and that there is a bit of "shrillness" audible in the top end at times. It doesn't help that my speakers are not very forgiving either. I know the VDA2 is a good DAC--it wiped the floor with the OMZ DAC I owned--and I may be nit-picking a bit--but I was wondering if there is anything else at this price point (used or otherwise) that would be a better selection for my system. Admittedly I haven't compared the VDA2 to much else.…

Well it happened, our old Philips DVP642 finally gave up the ghost last night and it couldn't come at a more inopportune time with Christmas just around the corner. I had figured my next DVD player would be one of the Oppo's but given the time of year and the fact I can't get one here and it would probably cost over $200 to get one online and have it shipped here I'm not sure if I can sell the wife on it or not. The DVD player will be used mostly for Divx capabilities so maximum Xvid and Divx compatibility is a must. It will also be used with a Mission Cyrus 1 and Paradigm Atoms for music, mostly background, but we still like it to sound decent. There's also the possib…

Continuation from THIS thread. Thanks! The noise floor/pops/clicks has nothing to do with the actual rig. The noise floor/pops/clicks mainly depend on your cart and the quality of the vinyl. The vinyl in this case was good at best. FAR from mint. I have to go out right now, but later I will post some examples of mint vinyl on a very high-end rig and some cheap poor man's rig. One clip was transferred on an $18,000.00 turntable. One was done on a used $35.00 turntable and $80.00 cart. The others were transferred on complete rigs that cost $2,000.00 at most. Which is which? All of the vinyl was either mint or near mint. This is why I think some vin…

Holy poop this seems cheap! http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=255711

Have you ever tried one? Looks like siriouse 20kg shit to me, isnt?

So here's my pickle. I am currently running my Apple Airport Express through my DAC1 using the AE's optical out. However, if I wanted to use a USB DAC, I would need a converter for the SPDIF--->USB conversion, correct? I'm aware that such things exist, but I'm wondering: a) Do they actually work well in practice, and Would such a converter work coming off the AE instead of directly out of a PC? In other words, most of the converters I have come across tend to have a PC in the mix, which indicates to me that maybe there's a driver issue. But I don't know shit, so help me out.

Hi Everyone, after getting advice from Icarium, I think I will skip Esoteric DAC lines. Right now , I have just known the Plantinum DAC III and plan to hunt for a used one. Does anyone know how much it will cost for a used one so i can save enough money for it? any owners, here?? thanks

Has anyone here ever done his own needle drops? And so, how are the results?

Today, my friend & I went to a top secret test location to take part in a top of the line digital showdown. We had a Simaudio Eclipse & Andromeda, Wadia 861, and the Mk1 Audio Aero Capitole. Amps were Wavelength Cardinals with the Coincident Total Victory II speakers and a S&B TX102 TVC preamp. Music was mostly classical and not entirely to my taste, but not surprising as me & my friend were the only ones under 45. I found this rather depressing since I had to act mature and refrain from ejaculating 4-letter words. I was also saddened that I couldn't play Slayer. On the bright side, no one played Norah Jones nor Diana Krall, and there was no "Hotel Cali…

i like new toys

Looking to get a second, decent, <US$1K universal player. Looking at: Marantz Oppo Arcam Denon Pioneer ...which others should I be looking at, and why? Looking to buy new, as the ridiculous amount of technology turnover makes it worrisome that components (especially the transport) will too quickly become irreplaceable. Oppo strikes me as the one to beat -- with an external DAC for redbook -- anyone have any serious contenders? I'd really like to think that the Marantz changer (VC6001) is pretty good, and is tempting if for no other reason than for its ability to play multiple disks.

Hi, I bought some shiny new records for my vinyl collection but they seemed a little odd. These things are like shiny silver on one side with graphics and stuff on the other, and they're smaller than my 45's. I put them on my record player and tried the 45 RPM setting, but it didn't work, and I couldn't get music out of them, only a horrible scratching sound. I tried the other side and got the same thing. What am I doing wrong?

Just some pics of the nude stylus I thought were cool. You can see the dust on it, I need to get a record cleaning machine.

The EAR Acute CDP Or, how does one decribe the goodness of an Ansel Adams photograph? Is it the technical mastery? Ansel Adams was afterall a master with his darkroom work and the technical aspects of his pictures, the exposure, contrast, detail, sharpness, tone, and so forth are outstanding and beyond reproach. But there's a lot more to his photos than that, the composition and how he captures a scene, the artistic aspect combined with the technical mastery is what makes them truly great. There's a lot of things which can't be described with words, but if you see the photos you instantly know that it's something special. And that's the problem I have when try…

Anyone know where I could buy just the transport/laser replacement for the SA-11S1? My Marantz SA-11s1 is out of warranty and now it stops playing many CD's and SACD's. The problem is intermittent and if I go through some voodoo magic spell I (turn off, turn on, open the tray, close the tray) can eventually get it to play the CD. Apparently there is something wrong with the transport/pick-up. Could be as simple as an allignment? but it looks like I can't open the unit up. Anyone have any experience troubleshooting this unit? Sound is fantastic when it works - but lately I feel like throwing it out the window.

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?