Home Source Components

Ok, so my wife is tired of all my listening with open cans in the living room so I am starting to think about moving everything into the second bedroom/office so she doesn't have to go into our bedroom to watch TV. I will likely get a nice club chair and ottoman and my plans are to either replace the Denon with a different DVD player or replace the Denon with a different CDP. The Denon has a pretty decent DAC in it but I know I could do better. Given the expenses of everything else I'd like to keep it under $500. Any advice would be appreciated.

Just wanted to see what people think is good in this price range. I am thinking about the DA100 as it will accept new sources in the future.

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?

I have to say, I thought there wouldn't be a huge difference over DirectStream to my Opus, and it isn't a huge difference, but ASIO sounds noticeably better than DS.

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

I picked up a Parasound 1100 hd at a thrift shop and found this website searching for info about it, I guess I should have opened it because the manual on the Parasound website is wrong. According to the manual it has 2 PCM63's per channel operating a push-pull output stage. I saw it didn't have balanced outputs but figured the manual was correct. Well it only has a single PCM63K per channel. It has an old high speed video opamp for the current conversion to voltage. I had bought it on the spot vagely remembering an Absolute sound article where they liked it as much as the TOL parasound and as much as any DAC at the time and I have always liked my friends Pass D…

Crap. Can the powers in control of this not sit down for the good of the consumer? Such potential but greed will keep us from really enjoying it for years to come is seems. Sorry if already posted but what a damn way to start the day. http://www.avrev.com/news/0107/04.total_hd_disc.shtml

If any owners (or former owners) could offer impressions of the Wavelength USB DACs I would appreciate it. Or any good user reviews on other forums. Thanks

Yet Another Thread To Talk About Digital Cables. discuss.

I could probably find this by searching the site, but I'm lazy and stupid when it comes to using a PC as a source. I ordered the Ayre QB 9 last week, and intend on trying to use my computer as a source in an attempt to downsize my CD collection on the boat. I want to use lossless format and get the best sound I can. I have just a regular Toshiba laptop and a generic terabyte drive. Can anyone advise me as to whether I should get a better computer (such as Mac laptop dedicated for music only), any specific hard drive, which program to use, and if there are any high end USB cables for sale? I have some pretty good source equipment, and I am very picky about the playback qua…

... is your video card. When combined with an AV receiver, the current generation of video cards, both ATI and Nvidia, offer HDMI 1.4a support, allowing your video card to digitally output lossless 192 kHz quality to your AV receiver (Dolby TrueHD and all that jazz.) Could this possibly be the solution to building a decent computer listening rig, when noisy internal sound cards that everyone has been shying away from have proved to be incompetent? The only problem I see with this is that most DACs and stereo receivers do not accept HDMI input, which raises the question, are there any components out there that can effectively utilize this? Or more specificall…

I am a complete noob at this. I have been lurking the forum, but I am confused. Most of the discussion is way over my head. My goal is to get a reasonably nice setup to use while on my exercise bike at home. I think I have decided on a pair of etymotic ER-4P In Ear Monitors because I need the isolation, the bike is very noisy. (see link http://www.head-case.org/index.php?topic=1097.0) I don't have a clue what to use for a source, or an amp. I am presently using an older dvd player with a headphone jack, but it won't play anything but a pressed disc, no CD-R's. My budget for a source and amp is pretty low, maybe $300, but less is better. I am reasonably computer lite…

Well, as you may or may not know I really love these cartridges. In fact, I will never own any other brand, save a Denon DL-102, or some other mono cartridge, and even then I'd have a custom mono cartridge made when I could afford it. Here's a product listing: http://www.sibatech.co.jp/ZYX/ZYXcatalog.htm as well as a picture of the R-50 Bloom: My cartridge is a special ordered low-output version, which comes in around 0.24mV. One nice thing about these cartridges is that the vertical and horizontal compliance is the same across the line, as is recommended tracking force, stock weight, recommended load, etc. etc. This makes moving up (and down) the line pretty…

Contemplating replacing my SqueezeCenter/Squeezebox 3 x3/sometimes iPeng setup with an Airport Express x3/iTunes/Airfoil/Remote-iPhone app deal. Tired of scanning my library for new music and would be a plus to capture other audio streams (with Airfoil). The Squeezebox internet radio steaming is nice though. And the Remote app is just smoother than using iPeng (at least at this point and likely near future at least with laptops ... hunting for IPs...). On a MacBook and will likely stay on OS X as primary operating system so no problems using iTunes. Anyone else do this "downgrade"? Any comments?

Any impressions on the Twisted Pear Audio Current output DAC ? The COD - Current Ouput DAC

I'm looking a few different options. I'm looking for a [redacted] that let's the [redacted] do the heavy lifting and retain its signature sound. So I guess the [redacted] has to be clean and [redacted]. I'm looking at the [redacted], [redacted], [redacted] and also the [redacted]. What are your thoughts on my selection?

I was (web)crawling around the Sony site to see if there was an update to the OS of my SCD-CE775, and stumbled across this -- sorta explains why my Sony player fucked up my God Forbid DualDisc, dunnit. I could come to hate Sony. I think I'm going to get rid of my player and get a Pioneer universal.

So here's my problem. I have a Powerbook G4 with 80 gigs of hard drive space on it. I have 672 songs in my iTunes library after clearing it out and it comes to a whopping 27 gigs because everything is ripped in ALAC. I recently sold my home gear because I just don't use it enough to warrant having it anymore and I need the money since I'm in college. I've been using my portable setup and my cheap ass computer speakers as of late. So basically it's onboard headphone jack for the speakers and my 3G 10 gig iPod. This leaves me with little space on my hard drive on both the computer and iPod, which is a problem cause I can't put anymore music on either, and I always want m…

... Of feeding a digital signal from a Creative X-Fi Elite Pro to the RME Fireface directly for all purpose (i.e. including gaming) use? Let me explain. On all of my PC's at the moment used seriously for any sort of audio use I run both an RME Fireface 800 and a Creative X-Fi Elite Pro. The Elite Pro handles gaming audio and is the default audio interface in Windows. Anything music or media orientated gets squirted through the Fireface. I've standardised on J.River Media Center for that purpose, along with the Algorithmix PEQ bundle of linear phase DirectX EQ's. All that then goes out either to Headroom Max's acting as headphone / pre amp, or Crane Song Avocets connect…

I got a TT for my birthday. It has usb and stuff for converting to digital, which seems convenient. *watches bank account implode*

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 …