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

I've recently bought a Lite DAC-39 second hand. At that time I did not have a proper coaxial line-out cable so I substituted it with a box-standard rca cable. I got imbalanced sound. So I bought a Zu audio Firemine and I thought the problem went away. But upon closer analysis, the problem persists in a different form. The left channel of the unbalanced output sounds "out of phase" the highs are pretty decent but the mids and bass are washed out. The right channel on the other hand is full bodied and sounds fantastic. I've troubleshooted my entire system and the problem definitely lies with the DAC. Both coaxial and optical inputs produce the same imbalance. I have alre…

Just kind of grasping at straws ATM, but I'm at a point where the bottleneck in my rig seems to be my source/transport. Currently I'm using my Onix as a transport (to my Lavry) and I was thinking about something like a Sony 9100ES (which probaly would go in for SACD mods at some point) or something like a Denon 3910 or so... Any other players I should be considering?

Now that both the Wavelength Cosecant USB DAC v3 (now with ASYNC mode) and the Benchmark USB DAC 1 and DAC 1-PRE support 24-bit audio at sample rates up to 96 kHz without the installation of any drivers or other special software. I am having a hard time choosing between them. My primary headphones are the Ultrasone UE 9 and the Grado GS 1000. Has anyone out there heard both side to side at any of the meets??? Are there specific advantages of one over the other? Why did Benchmark choose not to implement the asynchronous mode of USB ? Is this really a better way to go? There is a big price diff between the two and the Benchmark gives you a preamp and headphone amps to…

Just got this baby installed. It sounds a little better than my Moodlab did, still breaking in, only 1 hour old. Have a 1962 GE tube in it, been conjuring up the wallet resources to get a fancier tube like a 396 or a Bendix *shudder*. Seems to be more musical than other DACs as people have told me...you really get a feel for the instruments not just fancy bold noises and sounds. And with that, I'll take any questions. MHDT has good service, they took about a day to get back to me and then I got set up. DAC took 4 days to come. Shipped Saturday, came Wednesday. They're turbo fast, it cleared customs in 4 hours luckily enough. There was a powdered Chinese tube …

Introduction When I put my money down for a Berkeley Alpha DAC, I learned about a piece of software called Amarra that allegedly improved the performance of computer audio playback. I believe this was at CanJam along with the Berkeley Alpha but at the time, I dismissed it as a custom skin for iTunes since I didn't know what it was then. Naturally, I was skeptical since everything I've read online indicates that bit perfect audio is easily possible with freeware on both Mac and PC platforms. I didn't see why or how you could squeeze more performance past this or why it has to be Mac OS X exclusive; a quick survey of the internet reveals that many share similar misgiv…

Hey everyone I have been feeling an itch to to get a DAC capable of 24bit/96Khz or better. I currently have and love my Stax DAC talent. About what level of current DAC would exceed the quality of my current DAC? Do $500 DACs now exceed the quality of classic DACs? Or would I need to spend over $1000 or more to notice a difference? For those that don't know the DAC has a Burr Brown PCM63P which can do 20bit/48Khz. Some specs are Digital Filter: 20bit Oversampling: 8x Bit conversion: 20/16 Total harmonic distortion: 0.0015% (1kHz, 0dB) 0.015% (1kHz,-20dB); 1.5% (1kHz,-60dB) Frequency response: DC ... 20kHz (± 0.5dB) S / N ratio: 118dB Dynamic Range: 104dB C…

This is pretty much the first time I've had a chance to spend any quality time with the Pico DAC prototype that Justin was kind enough to send me since I've been out of town all weekend. My system in transition at the moment so I only have the Duet as my headphone amp and won't have me monoblock back for my speaker rig until Wednesday. At the moment I'm using the mini out of the Pico for my 650's with the Pico connected usb to my Mac Mini. I'm using the volume control of itunes to control the Pico. I realize this isn't the optimum set up but it's the best I can do until later in the week when my speaker rig is back in action. I have to say that Pico sounds great. …

I did a search for Brennan here and both hits were well into necro territory so here goes: I'd never heard of them before (which doesn't mean much, as usual) but saw an ad for them in the WSJ today that got my attention. http://www.brennan.co.uk/itemlist.php/clasrefr/units They sell through Amazon and it's a Fulfiment by Amazon setup which is nice. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=bl_sr_electronics?_encoding=UTF8&node=172282&field-brandtextbin=Brennan What do you all think? What's the story on these folks? Anyone try out any of their products?

Having a handfull of Squeezeboxes in the house I was hoping to try my hand at DRC for my speaker setup. After working throurgh to creation of a filter with DRC and Inguz, it would seem Inguz doesn't work with the latest version of LMC. I could always try and run an earlier version, but I figures I would see what others have had sucess with? BruteFIR seems like another option but I am LINUX retarded and it looks to be a bit configuration intensive.

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.

What's interesting about this one is that it does HDMI -- I wonder how far off we are from one that can be set to record?

Ok so I spoiled the entire review/impressions thing with the title but I am just that enthusiastic about this new piece of gear from apogee http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/duet.php The unit itself is designed for the recording musician on the go. The unit is powered by the firewire port and that port also serves as the digital in as well. There are NO other digital inputs on this unit and it is designed for Mac users only. The analog ins and outs are acessed by a breakout cable. The analog outs are 1/4 mono females and are meant to be hooked up to powered monitors for audio playback of tracks you have recorded or to monitor recordings as they happen. There is also…

OK, so I've had this thing running for about an hour. At first I was meh. It was connected to my dekstop machine (Win7) using just USB, out to the Ventus and the ATH-ESW9s. It seemed so laid back up top. Weird. The ESW9s don't usually sound that way. Neither does the Ventus. Odd. So I swapped out the Ventus for the CKKIII that was behind me. What the hell. Ah. Better. More musical. More air. Things opened up quite a bit. Then I swapped in the HD600s. Finally! I didn't expect this combination to work so well. Of course, we all know about system synergy here, right? This is definitely a case where the reviews I read were off. 'Nuff said. I'm lik…

I've been thinking about getting a new MacBook and I realized that Apple has changed all the ports. Everything is Thunderbolt 3/USB 3.1 and the headphone jack lost its optical output with the 2016 models: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7818763?start=0&tstart=0 Have you guys done any research on DACs with Thunderbolt 3/USB 3.1? I think everyone is going to be using USB Type-A to Type-C adapters until manufacturers release new products. Yes, I realize that there isn't an immediate benefit to using Type-C connections for audio. It looks like an opportunity to sell stuff all over again.

I ordered one of these DACses and will post impressions, pics, and random musings here.

Alright, so I'm still debating my next source upgrade, I had pretty much decided on a Storm Digital D02 (or baby D02 depending on whether I feel my shelf can handle the over 20 lbs of the regular D02) to be paired up with my Headamp GS-1 but in the past couple of days I've been reading more about people using the balanced outputs of the Lavry DA10 and I've also been reading more about the benefits of recabled, balanced headphones which has brought the DA10 back into consideration. I expect the D02 + GS-1 combo would give me a similar but improved sound over what I have now and because of the GS-1's versatility it would give me a very flexible system that can easily be …

What falls in that category? I'm not sure this is the perfect timing considering my latest thread but I'm interested finding out more. I hope I don't annoy anyone here with all these questions. I mentioned the DA220 over in that thread and someone said it was not really "high-end" so then, what is? I've looked at several options but it's hard wading through all these opinions of other people spread out over numerous of threads, comparing apples to oranges or comparing only 2 or 3 options of what I've found so far. I've made a list of DACs gathered from the "Best DAC money can buy" over at hf and left out several models because of their lacking specs / sonically signa…

Grado Sonata Reference VS. Audio-Technica AT440MLA VS. Denon DL-103 Its the comparison nobody asked for! Associated Equipment: Technics SL1200MK2 Grado PH-1 (on H gain for DL-103, L gain for AT440MLA and Sonata) Cambridge Audio 840A Stax SRD-7/Pro Adaptor Stax SR-007/Omega II Music used: Alan Parsons - I Robot Classic Records 200g Introduction Back when I started this hobby blah blah mikey fremer. The Rundown Highs Sonata: They're OK. Sometimes they are dull and wooly, sometimes the upper midrange must creep into the treble, because then it sounds bright, or maybe overly glarey. Could just be a tonearm mismatch. AT440MLa: The highs are …

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

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

Just got a set of naked old men from http://lemonparty.org, and got a pair of dildos from http://babeland.com by $700 this weekend. With some other gears I already have, experiences and thoughts in playing with those gears will be shared later.

This may be a stupid question (and feel free to say so if it is), but does the Headroom Micro DAC have the diamond buffer in it? Does it make sense for it to? From a brief perusal of a thread or two on Head-Fi, it seems not, but I just wanted to make sure.

After over 12 years of service, my "home" source, a portable Panasonic SL-S160 player, might be finished. Yesterday afternoon, I heard a popping sound (like static) every few minutes about a half hour into listening to some Jane Monheit - suddenly, the volume dropped out entirely. I turned the amp off, disconnected the line-out and re-connected it, and turned the amp back on. The sound came back, but much quieter, very echoey and distant. At first, I panicked and thought either my headphones or amp was dying. Some testing today proved that both seem to be fine. If I fiddle with the line-out (pull the plug slightly out) on the player, I can get the volume back without e…

I'm thinking about getting a used OMZ DAC v4 Where does it rank in the DAC world? I'm not familiar with this hobby and just getting started.