Home Source Components

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.

Not sure if any of you have seen this, but this unit looks pretty darn nice! They have built a reference audio section in it as well. It has been reviewing really well on the AVS forum. PQ and SQ rated equally well. The price isn't too bad either compared to the Sony and Denon TOTL. Link Here

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"…

I've been trying to think of a nice digital home transport that would be able to feed the digital part of my rig. My iRiver has served me well, but its optical out is probably less than ideal. It's also running out of space... I used to have most of my music LAME-APS encoded, but I've recently moved to wavpack (a lossless format similar to FLAC, both of which is supported natively on the rockbox'ed iRiver). Also, I don't want to be forced to have a computer running nearby in order to enjoy my music. Solution? Squeezebox. It can stream the music from my linux server in the closet (where I can't hear it) to my home rig. There are also various ways to remote control it (u…

Guys, I'm looking for a way to use my trusty Bantam DAC on a pretty minimalistic system running Arch. Requirement is not to be gnome or KDE based and I'd prefer something command-line oriented. Anyone have any experience with the following: C* Music Player is a very feature-rich ncurses-based music player. MOC (Music On Console) is an ncurses console audio player with support for the MP3, Ogg, and WAV formats. ncmpc is a curses client for mpd. ncmpcpp is an almost exact clone of ncmpc with some new features. Sonata is an elegant GTK+ music client for mpd. cplay is a curses front-end for various audio players.

I've made sure all of my cart is correctly connected but I'm not getting any music through the right channel and there is a loud buzzing hum that sounds like perhaps it's not properly grounded or something. Can anybody help me figure out how to fix this problem?

Bought a Sony Modwright 999es second hand over at HF. Just got it in today! I've only listened to a few SACDs I purchase to check it out, but so far it is pretty magical. Couple of pics: Dedicated power supply: Only immediate impressions are that vocals on SACDs (depeche mode sofad, roxy music avalaon, harnoncourt mozart's requiem) seem much more real. Everything sounds wider, more rounded, all the various instruments seem to have a specific place they exist in. Very cool. The Mozart sounds wonderful. Looking forward to doing an AB test with the redbook FLACS of this through my DA100. The DM sofad I have mixed feelings about. The mix is very, ver…

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

Hi everyone I want to create a new bedroom rig to replace my old sony minitower. I will be using the next gen ipod nano that will arrive in september as the heart of the rig and then probbably the onkyo ipod transport, i can connect a dac to that via spdiff or coax but I am not sure which one yet. I want one with xlr output and either spdiff or coax input. I want to spend 400 euro max. I was thinking about the dacmagic but the little dot dac_i uses the seem dac chip and has xlr out although the rest of the chips or implementation might be different. It is a lot cheaper though. I was also thinking about the buffalo II with placid power supply and the line stage legatt…

What are some of the contenders in the under $1k range new? Just stick with Sony?

Just got this stack last week (except the top bit). As a combo, it sounds really fantastic and it's really got me listening to my headphones again. Way better than the Desktop DAC in that little convertible (that isn't wildly surprising...). I was somewhat skeptical about the X-10 (tube buffer), but I think it sounds better with than without so it can't be complete BS. Anyone else heard this setup? (I'm selling the X-CAN v3 that came with it if anyone wants it...). I see there is a new MF X-DAC v8 (3 + 1 = 8?) which includes the PSU, and tube section, as well as USB input in 1 bigger box. Glamour shot attached

I bought a NOS dac (audiosector/audio zone) and love the sound and am wondering about these (audial see below) or other higher end NOS dac's. I know the arguments against these (noisy, no resolution etc) not interested in a debate. Any help with these dacs would be appreciated. Audial :: High Quality Audio Equipment

I'm not sure if you guys have been following the recent developments, but there has been talk of an "enhancement". Well, I'm here to spill the beans to give you guys the heads up, in case any of you are in the market for a new DAC. Currently there is a "silent" promotion going on, which means all new D02 orders placed will actually be for the D02A. For $412 plus shipping you'll get the D02A with external battery power supply and matching chassis, until the first batch ships, then it'll jump to $499-$549 for the D02A and an additional $150 for the external battery power supply. Yup, it'll be a 2 box design with the second housing the battery and charger. But here's w…

I finally got my amp back and running, so I'm going to start posting my impressions of my new CD player. I still have my Panasonic SL-S160 PCDP as a reference, but I'll probably stop making comparisons after a while. Before I mention anything else though, I noticed the output power is much higher than my Panasonic's - this is logical because of the differences between portable and home players' power supplies and output sections. Anyway, the Arcam sounds much louder at the same level on the volume dial - I'll probably have to turn it down when I listen for longer periods. I've only listened to the first three tracks of Jane Monheit's Taking a Chance on Love on both pla…

Headamp Pico vs. Headroom Single-Ended Desktop with DAC Surely someone has had the opportunity to do a shoot out between these two, or has heard both and has a firm enough memory to compare them? Though I don't really have a practical use for either of them, these all in one headphone-centric units just fascinate me.

Anyone check out the measurements from the Zanden review in the November issue of Stereophile? Not that Stereophile or in particular Michael Fremer had any credibility left. But how the hell did he manage to be floored by a combo that had a roughly 4 db channel imbalance and a thd+noise of 25% at 50hz.

Hey- Bit of a bummer. Got my Quad CDP-2 on Monday, and a problem manifested itself late Wednesday evening. Large amounts of distortion started coming out of the left channel. I tried everything: switching interconnects, switching inputs on my amp, different digital cables (even though the distortion is also present when playing a CD), different power cords, and different power outlets. The distortion is present out of both the fixed and variable outputs of the CDP-2. Its not the speakers, because my 840C and TT perform fine. The weird thing is the distortion doesn't show up until the player has been playing for 3-4 hours. I'm starting to feel crazy, because …

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…

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

I have this in my system now for about two days. Inside pictures later when I can figure out how to open it up and get my camera back. It is stock, not modded by John Wright. I've been comparing it with my also Parasound DAC1100 (using Squeezebox 3 as digital transport). The Bitstream is definitely on the same level as the 1100. The Bitstream has more presence in the upper mids which opens up the Omega 2 a bit. The high freq extension is also exceptional on the Bitstream. I will run some test tones later, but right now nothing is missing from the highs. Bass might also have a bit more oomph, but this is too close to tell at this point. Both the Parasound and Museate…

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?

What good/excellent sources are there with usb and toslink inputs that have an inbuilt preamp or have consumer (-10dBu) rather than line-level (+4dBu) analog XLR outputs ? It`d need to have usb and toslink inputs at a bare minimum, i2s would help future proof it . I am looking for a quieter source than my line-level mini-dac so that I can remove the voltage divider I`m having to use to reduce its volume. A source with as good or better performance than the mini-dac is preffered. my current solution http://www.head-case.org/forums/do-yourself/5997-resistor-type-make-volume-attenuation.html#post218512

I sold my McCormack DNA-500 to a guy with an agreement that he could audition it and decide whether to go through with it. He uses his Bel Canto Dac3 as source and preamp. He goes directly into the amp, and I have asked whether he uses balanced XLR cables or s/e RCA cables but I have not heard back yet. The amp sounds great with his Wilson Benesch speakers, but the problem is a buzz/hiss that is present and presumably most noticeable in quiet passages or when there is no music playing. He has contacted SMc Audio, Steve McCormack's shop, and has done what they have suggested (cheater plug, switch outlets, try a line conditioner and direct into outlet, etc) to no avai…

Audiophilleo1 - advanced low jitter USB to SPDIF transport Thoughts folks? Load of crocks or something that works ?

Anyone looking for an SB3 should jump on this fast, assuming of course that it's the wireless version.