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I was thinking of picking up this computer to use as a transport for the Pico Dac: The Dell Online Store: Build Your System It comes with XP Home, 1 gb ram and 8 gb ss hard drive. It's $299 and has a 8.9" screen. I would be running itunes only with an external drive connected to it containing the music files. It seems perfect as it has a small screen if any issues come up requiring reboots, etc. I would use the remote on my iphone. I had the mac mini, which was great but also had to have a separate monitor attached. This will save room and should do exactly what I need.

Hi, does anyone know what this is worth and how's its performance? I'm looking for a DAC, and this popped out. But a quick search turned up the newer models, I think this one is a very old model (I'm assuming the first). It has balanced outputs which is nice, but I was wondering about its performance... Thanks for your help HC!

Just saw this on ebay and wondered if anyone here has heard one? 1 Grado Lab Series Wood Tonearm Transcription Turntable - eBay (item 200282360211 end time Feb-28-09 08:49:43 PST) I've not come across this setup before but looks interesting -- great pics, anyway. Pretty solid-looking deck. k

For sale on Agon for a very decent price This is an outstanding CD, SACD and DVD-Audio player. AudiogoN ForSale: Denon 3930CI ps. Not mine by the way, this is just a public service announcement

Before I start would like to say that this is my first CD player, which I can call HIGH END. Not because of his MSRP price only, but for his futures and quality of sound level of course. Another thing is, I am not an professional reviewer, but somebody who write about things based pure on emotional experience of music listening. As last one to mention, my XLR cables aren't fully burn yet, they need about 100 hours, but I do hear changes already ( +/- 30 hours ), become more fuller and warmer than the first 20 hours, I believe. System: Unison Research Unico CD player uses 2x ECC82=12AU7 NATIONAL 5814A ( re-branded Sylvania 5814A ), Mullard ECC82 CV4003 1960, Tung Sol…

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…

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?

Yes another USB converter.... I have an easy one for you: do these USB converters are that truly different from each other? I mean are they realy on different levels if you compare the ones you can find used like the affordable RedWine Audio to the crazy expensive Empirical stuff? I like the Canto presentation but at $500 (US) this need to be good. Thanks in advance. Amicalement

Hello all, I recently purchased an Audio Alchemy DDE v1.2 off of ebay. I guess this is my fault for the most part since I didn't ask questions before I bought it but it did not come with a power supply. Well, I have a few AA power supplies lying around but none of those have the same connection as the PS5. It's connection looks identical to an S-video connection. A 4 prong din. So now I'm stuck with this unit and have no way to use it. Does ANYONE on this forum have one they're NOT using? I will gladly take it off your hands. Thanks, Adam

Associated Equipment: Sources: SOTA Star Sapphire Seris III table Fidelity Research FR64fx arm (Effective mass 20-22 grams) Benz Micro Glider L2 cartridge (Low output MC, 0.3mV, medium compliance) Merrill Heiloom table Eminent Technology ET2 arm Ortofon MC20 cart (Info on this is lacking, but IIRC I've seen an ad for this same cart in a magazine from the 1970's. What I read is very LOW output, very LOW compliance. I would guess an output less than or equal to 0.15mV, based on comparison to my Glider) Phono Stages: Benz Lukaschek PP-1 (pre-dates T9 version) Rogue Stealth (version 2.0 circuit board, has a pair of AD 797 opamps) Preamps/Headphone Amps: Eddi…

It was posted on the other forum here: DA11, Lavry new DA - headphone feature - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio It was mentioned that the USB is up to 24 bits and 96KHz. I copied and pasted the info below: Introducing the LavryBlack DA11- Lavry Engineering takes stereo DA conversion to a new level! Features like a USB input, programmable settings, infrared remote capability, and the proprietary >PiC< Playback Image Control

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 …

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…

I currently have a X-Fi Elite pro containing the CS4398 DAC which it seems to share in common with headroom's ultra micro DAC. Is this an adequate DAC? Should I look to upgrade? I have a incoming beta22 and a friend mentioned that the sound card dosen't have a proper "line out" to run to the b22. Thoughts?

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 found one of these locally for about $1k, and I'm tempted to pick it up. The problem is I can't audition them (not that I would have a decent reference to begin with), so does anyone here besides Nanoha (he had a unit, but hasn't logged in since August last year) have any experience with this converter? or have any info that might be useful in helping me decide? Thanks

Try comparing this to Foobar. There's definitely a difference and I'm not just talking about volume. Could it be a DSP effect? The demo's easy to find but the unlocked software costs 72 euros. I need some opinions because this thing sounds good, but why?

Unveiled at CES and almost no one noticed, where was all the press? I demand impressions even if they're only visual! Accuphase DP-600: Accuphase Laboratory, Inc.?DP-600 (MSRP unknown) Luxman D-08: On a Higher Note :: D-08 Stereo SACD / CD Music Player ($14K) And even Denon's new DCD-SX: Denon unveils Flagship SACD player, DCD-SX - SlashGear Zero chance I'll buy any of these but Luxman's other new D-06 CDP is only $8K which is kinda awfully tempting... (and I gotta say, these new Luxman CDPs are very nice-looking)

Despite the low price this looks interesting. Those HF-ers will probably be all over this one given its price. Can anyone provide some insight on the selection of parts? Stereophile: Oh Nose, Not Another One! "The Music Hall dac25.2 ($600) uses an Electro-Harmonix 6922 tube, a Texas Instruments PCM1796 24-bi/192kHz DAC chip, a TI SRC4192 Asynchronous sample-rate converter (with a high-precision active crystal oscillator master clock), and four digital inputs (S/PDIF, TOSLINK, XLR, and USB). It sports re-clocking and user-adjustable upsampling (96kHz or 192kHz). It outputs analog via XLR or RCA."

Hi, I hope this isn't a stupid question, but anyway: How is a $2000 CD transport better than a $200 one? As far as transports go the output is entirely digital, there are no analog stages that can be affected by inteference/component quality/etc. So what's the difference? Digging through doesn't seem to yield any definitive answer. I wish I could A/B them, but unfortunately its hard to come by in my area. Thanks!

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…

Just thinking of grasping this but there're little reviews out there. I wonder how does it stand against other commercial DACs like the DAC1,DA10 and DA220MKII? And, most importantly, can it be configured to have USB input?

Stereophile: Ayre's QB-9 USB DAC Revealed

Stereophile: Wadia Need Next? DAC only $999 DAC w/ HP amp $1499 No, I don't need a new DAC, my DacMagic is very good

Thought I would start a new thread to ask all my newbie questions and host the pictures.