Home Source Components

I know that Audio Aero Prima SE and Opus 21 have it, but are there any others? Few others I've seen has been well over my budget. I can spend up to $3000, though less is always preferred.

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.

Okay, just kicking around an idea here. Kevin at KAB does a Cardas rewire terminated in a 5 pin DIN phono plate. I emailed Kevin and asked if this was a truly balanced connection for use with a balanced phono stage. His response: "That is the one single advantage of the din connector. carrying a balanced connection from the cartridge to the preamp. it has 5 pins. + - right, + - left, and a sheild. RCA's cannot be used for that, of course your phono stage must be able to accept that kind of connector as well." ...so I could get this done to my TT, and run XLRs to something like the Aqvox Phono 2Ci MKII Balanced Phono Preamp, and then of course the balanced amp,…

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 thought about putting this in the DIY forum but mostly it's about a modded new source, so here it is. Full credit goes to Brain Donegan (of Twisted Pear Audio) who showed me one of these when I was at his house picking up some other parts. He also pointed me to the thread at DIY Audio where some guys had figured out a nifty little mod for the units, more on that in a minute. In stock form this is essentially a poor man's Squeezebox. It's setup to work with a MusicMatch library file and allows you to stream mp3's from your PC wirelessly and connect it to your amplification device of choice via the unit's analog outputs. Not all that special until you factor in three …

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

Thinking of going with a new dac, as an upgrade from my apogee minidac. I've been using USB and have primarily flac files (ape, ogg as well). Mainly i'm debating going with a benchmark dac1/is2(usb conversion) , or maybe a transporter to avoid USB all together. It seems the onbard usb options on most dacs are considered inferior transports to an alternative like this. No complaints with my mindac, but I know I can do a bit better with these fancier transport options available. I don't have any oversampling either and I know that i'm not utilizing the full potential of this DAC. Anyway i've read a bit about the empiricle audio is2 dac1 mods, and also been trying …

I'm not too good at home theater stuff, so I need some help. I need some suggestions on the absolute cheapest way to get 5.1 surround sound out of my tv, using it's optical out, and then going to Logitech Z-5300e speakers. The connectors for the speakers are 1/8's, so obviously this poses a slight challenge. I'm stressing cheapest, cause medical school is killing my wallet. Thanks, Dave

http://picasaweb.google.com/asebastian2/DoubleCrown/photo#5107114672554852322 So pretty! These are the ultra rare and highly acclaimed double crown version of the 20 year old R2R non-OS Phillips TDA1541A chip. Haven't been tested by my DAC builder to see if they are legit ;p But hopefully they are! They use this chip (only 1 or 2 though) in the highest end Zanden dac and various old school players like the Marantz CD-7. Apparently crazies in Japan build dacs with 32-64 of these chips per channel. Very pricey at $100-$150 if you can find them ;p Asebastian sourced them for me and is planning on sticking them in a modified version of this dac: http://www.ecdesi…

I'm a newb when it comes to CD players and I was wondering what is the differences between the 2? I was going to use it connected to my DAC1 to play CDs instead of playing my CDs from my laptop. Right now my laptop with HD-DVD player is okay, but I'm worried about how much jitter it may be producing. I was hoping to get a decent CD player to play regular CDs. I was thinking about sticking with my DAC1 and just using my laptop CD player since the DAC1 should help cutdown on the jitter, but I'm not sure. Thanks in advance .

For sale on Head-foo. Probably a very decent source. http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3213733&postcount=1

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

Smoking deal http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?homevdeo&1192926190

If anyone's interested, there's an Audio Aero Capitole on sale on HF. I don't know if it's a good deal or not, though. http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=256498

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

In all honesty, I had all but decided to snag an Apogee Mini-Dac for the office setup but was having little luck finding one at a price I could live with. Not sure why, but I began thinking about a piece of gear that had really excited me when it first came out. Just had other things more pressing so I didn't pull the trigger then. This time I just couldn't resist it. Didn't really need it, but darned if I'm not tickled that I have it. Best purchase I've made in quite some time. I'll get around to listening to my FLAC files sooner or later, but right now, I'm just loving the Internet Radio! What a big ol' world we live in!!

So I'm tinkering with the notion of dumping the 999es in favor of a player which also handles DVD-A and HDCD. HDCD capability is important since all of the new Grateful Dead Rhino releases are HDCD encoded, and I love the Grateful Dead. The most immediately obvious choice is a modded Denon 3910, since it is widely positively reviewed, and modded models can be had cheap on the gon. As we speak there is an sacdmods for 1300 and a modwright for 2300. I tend toward the Modwright since I'm already a fan of the Modwright house sound, and since it has that big ass overbuilt power supply (which, if I bought used, I would send in to get the tube rectification upgrade). I'm look…

I'm going to upgrade my source, and it has to be a standalone dac so I can use it with my computer. But I was thinking that it should also do A/D conversion so I can make better needledrops. Does anybody know of some good, preferably under 1k A/D/A's?

http://www.referenceaudiomods.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=Oppo_Units&Category_Code=MODS&Product_Count=37 Anyone heard one of these? Any thoughts? The price of the mods is crazy high for such an inexpensive player. I own a stock Oppo 970HD which I use as an upsampling DVD player. I am very pleased with it. Deadwood looks fantastic! I've used it to play music, but only through my HT setup, which isn't as resolving as my headphone rig, so I can't really judge its sound quality. Anywho, I've been considering hooking up my Oppo to my headphone rig just to do a shootout between it, the Modwright, and the Aqvox. Maybe I'll do it this we…

So, my dad's ponying up like 10 grand for a McIntosh integrated tube amp and a pair of B&W speakers and needs a source to go with them (as well as interconnects). I'm not well informed about high end sources so can some of you guys help me find something that's up to par with the amp and the speakers? Looking for DACs or CD/SACD players Lets say $5000 limit

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"…

And I'm thinking about making an impulse purchase. I've been wanting to bring my computer/foobar/flac back into the audio family for a while now, and reading iron dreamer's and others' comments makes me think the signature of the aqvox might be too my liking (overall laid back, emphasis on the midrange, decent enough soundstage). Plus it has lots of options to tweak, which is fun, what with the oversampling, filters, and what have you. And I figure I could offload it without losing my shirt if I didn't like it. So should I do it? Is this a decent price? http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?dgtlconv&1189793122

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3121804&postcount=5 Cmon now. Granted I don't own an iPod, but why is this the current thought: that an iPod can be an absolute reference source. I'd like to think my $400 DAC sounds much better. What's the deal here? Do these fanboys really believe their iPod is this good?

I wonder if things like this will ever be available commercially. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11851842

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?dgtlconv&1188151999 What the hell is he using for pictures? Those cool 'ebay' approved 7-11 (err Kwik-E-Mart) specials?