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Been browsing the Digital Asylum aimlessly and have found people talking about this Altmann Attraction DAC. What the hell is this? Why haven't you all told me about it? Anybody heard one? At least I know they didn't spend most of their budget on the case. http://www.mother-of-tone.com/attraction.htm

Well, I finally got my last piece of gear yesterday: the Phonomena II. I had it sent to my parents' house since I'm hardly ever home to receive stuff. I will pick it up today (ordered it along with new inner sleeves for LP's - no point washing if I put them back in the old ones). I will also compare it with the highly-regarded as bang-for-buck CA 640P (which I got a good deal on in Audiogon). The 640P wasn't a planned purchase, but I read it is a good piece of gear. We'll see how the Phonomena II (at $600 new) does against it. Not to mention there are two cartridges in the house now (used MC cartridge ZYX Bloom and new MM cartridge AT150mlx). I won't begin any test…

So yesterday I get home from a long day at work. I eat my dinner then I go upstairs, and turn on my amp to warm up. I boot my tower (transport), and after a little bit I cue up an album, put on my w100 and ... nothing. I play with some settings on my computer... nothing. I try my 701...nothing I tunr off my amp, reseat the tube.. nothing I plug my CD player into my DAC, put in a disc...nothing I try my reciever...nothing I plug my amp directly into my DVD player's analog out... SOUND As I'm moving gear around, I realize there is water on everything, and it was jsut POURING rain about an hour ago. Pissed, I go downstairs: "mom did you have my window open"…

http://www.samick.jp/shop/24_14.html Lots of I/O, looks interesting, but I don't know enough about anything to decipher the doohickeys in the pictures.

So last time I looked we were talking vigorously of a certain Capitole that showed up in a certain unstable state. Lot's of people had lot's to say late into last evening. I went to look to see if there was anymore feedback and...for the life o' me I can't find the thread. It's gone, or at least I don't sse it. I looked at my PMs to see maybe it had been moved elsewhere or even removed for some reason that I'm sure would be explained. But no PM eiher. I'm just blind as a bat or hallucinating once again. Can anybody find the "Capitoleizing-yes I did!" thread or explain why it's gone?

Anybody heard this cart? Rumor has it the 440MLa pairs well with the SL1200, and I'm thinking of picking one up not just for varieties sake, but also so I can get some practice adjusting cartridge alignment. http://www.needledoctor.com/Audio-Technica-440MLa-Cartridge?sc=9

I had occasion to open up my ECD-1 a few nights ago to dim the bright blue LEDs, and I thought I'd take some pictures. I didn't have the proper hex wrenches for the digital section, so the aluminum cover remains in place for now. Should anyone be dying to see it, I'll happily pop it back open. The external hex bolts were a bitch to get off, so I had to dremel two of them into flathead bolts. Having done that, the cover comes off easy now

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/high-end-pc-audio,3733-19.html I'll be in the funny pictures thread.

So, tube buffers. I've read numerous opines over the years about how great/bleh tube buffers are and wondered who here has ever played with them and what you think. Are they the shit or is it just a phony way of adding some tube distortion in a way pleasing to some. From what people are reporting it seems like they can make a middling system better but can also mess up a better one. It's all very confusing to my pea-like brain, however it does sound mildly interesting.

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…

anyone tried one of these? http://tech.uk.msn.com/audio/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=158211805

I am constantly thinking about getting a turntable (not like a high-end one, just something basic that can do the job), but one thing that is holding me back is my worry that headphones, due to their close placement to the ears, might exacerbate vinyl surface noises to the point of distraction. Is this worry warranted? I will probably get a basic vacuum cleaning machine if I do end up with a table. And of course a lot depends on the table itself, cartridge, phono stage, and set-up, but in general, has anyone found that using headphones to listen to vinyl has picked up surface noises to the point of distraction? And if so, how have you dealt with it?

Just got the June 2010 issue of Stereophile today and a review of this DAC was in there. Every important input (coaxial, optical, AES/EBU, USB), USB upsampled to 24/192, and it has both RCA and XLR balanced outputs - for $879! And it's also a headphone amp. I think I might have to try one. The review says the DAC chip is the PCM1796. Here's a pic (it's the one on the top):

Linked from here Excerpt:

So I've been listening off and on to my Thorens TD160 and so far I've got to say that I'm pretty unimpressed. Now, I know full well that I've probably got a crap cart on there and that it's not setup right but before investing in at least a Mid-Fi cart (you can expect a thread on that one too) I figured it'd be a good idea to at least get what I've got setup right. I'm not averse to spending a little money on this project but if someone tells me that I need hundreds of dollars of kit to setup my $200 vinyl rig that'll be the end of it. So what's the sane way of going about this? *paging postjack, paging postjack*

first impression: the sound is extremely clear. second impression: the UI is a tad user unfriendly without RTFM.

...to either replace or chain off of my 0404 usb. Music: Rock and Electronic, not much jazz or folk or acoustic, the occasional classical listen. Amps: aside from the 0404 are a Rockhopper M^3, a Gilmore Lite Headphones are: HD650, K601, DT250, K271. Long, wordy version: I'd need it to either have toslink or coax inputs, or if usb only be able to fully replace the I/O functionality of an 0404 usb - I make use of the analog in and occasionally the second digitial input (it will mix the usb and spdif inputs). This unfortunately rules out the duet, as it won't play nice with everything else. Keeping the 0404 is fine by me, though. I had an eye on the amp-le…

No professional reviews of this $2,000 box yet. 2 slavering 5-star fanboy "reviews" on the Sony site. Now in stock at Amazon. Who will be first in line for Sony's other new digital box thingy? http://www.theonion.com/video/sony-releases-new-stupid-piece-of-shit-that-doesnt,14309/ I am enjoying my Azurite Blue PS3, though. It works OK... I guess.

I find myself in a pickle today. I turned on my old, Win XP audio PC/music server and found it broke. Specifically, 2 separate components were malfunctioning. One was the Rocketfish eSATA hard drive enclosure, which housed my 3.5" drive with Win XP OS AND music (I do have data backup), which developed some kind of error, leading to my PC not even booting up, at times citing "disc read error" or "I/O error," depending on which time I rebooted. I temporarily solved the issue by simply moving my hard drive inside my PC in SATA bay. This is not optimal because I had previously found my system to sound cleaner and purer with the hard drive outside the computer via eS…

One of the sources I've been considering upgrading to for CD playback. I'm trying to find out if there is any sort of digital input, which would eliminate the need for the Bel Canto, and free that up for another rig. I haven't seen anything about inputs, only outputs. If anyone knows if this has any sort of digital input, I'd appreciate you mentioning it. Thanks.

Just wondering if anyone's had a chance to listen to Opus DAC? It looks really interesting and makes me wish I had DIY skills.

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

Lately been drifting a bit towards convenience over ultimate fidelity. Would love a single box for the speaker rig and in the most recent Audio Advisor the new Parasound Halo Integrated [pdf] was featured. Checks off a lot needs in a digital & analog rig, but anyone see an obvious weak spot? Need to hear obviously, but hopeful.

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?

Have any of you Parasound DAC owners tried these ASE-Audiotuning "upgrades"? http://www.audiotuning.de/english/index.html?1-54-digital.html