Home Source Components

I was reading this review, and it mentions the AqVox USB isolating power supply: A strong statement. But after looking around, there appears to be some controversy -- so...what it is? Have you tried it? Did it make a difference? It sounds like I should at least try it, but the AqVox appears to be geared towards the European market -- so is there a North American equivalent? I'd be particularly interested in Justin's thoughts since he has probably already put some thought into this. Justin?

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.

Anybody else interested in the Olive One Music Player? I am kind of surprised that this interests me, but it does.

Just noticed that Electrocompaniet has a new DAC, the ECD-2. This interests me - I <3 the ECD-1. http://www.electrocompaniet.no/news/item_0033.html (Looks kinda ugly though.)

I think it may finally be time to do away with CDs for the meet rig. Plus, shipping the CD player back and forth to meets is costly and takes up expensive table space, and they eventually break. Time to go DAC-only. At RMAF, i did have a few people come up to me wanting to play their files off SD cards or USB flash drives, and I was not equipped to do this with my CD player...another DAC advantage as I know some of them support this. Something small and lightweight would also be a plus as it makes travel/shipping easier. any recommendations?

Hi, Basically I want this: http://audioengineusa.com/Store/Audioengine-D2 but without the dac. I want to send the output from my oppo wireless to any one of the DACS that may be across the other side of the room. Maybe radio shack has something, figured I'd ask if anyone used such a device.

So I just bought a used G4 Mac Mini for $89.00. Thought I'd try it out, now that I have a USB DAC. I guess at this point my plan is just Mini to Zdac via USB, and iTunes as player. Not sure what operating system is on the Mini (should arrive before the first of Dec.) I've browsed for small LED monitors, but with no luck. Is there an iPad sized monitor out there? Curious about how everyone else is running their Mini based setups, all advice welcomed.

Got my shipping notice today for the Zdac, via Audio Advisor. According to them I was #1 on the list. I've apparently been #1 on audio dealer's lists before, because my Mom said many times that I was #1 on the Schiit list. Didn't even know they made audio equipment at the time. Anyway, I've been curious about this DAC for a while, due to it's small size, and my previous taste for the Parasound sound. I've recently amassed a handsome stack of matching Zgear to encompass a tidy little desktop system. This will be my first USB DAC, so I'm a bit excited about the prospects of such a device. Other sources beyond computer audio will be my Cambridge iD100/iPod/iPad and th…

My heavily modded Philips 963SA was acting up so I just pulled the trigger on the Music Hall CD25.2 player that PartsConnexion had in their autumn sale for $499.00 w/free shipping It has their level 1 mods: RCA jacks upgraded to Vampire Feet upgraded to sorbothane Chassis deadening Cap and resistors in output stage upgraded to audiophile level Output op-amps upgraded to OPA-627 Diodes and caps in PSU upgraded as well. Will post pics when it arrives

I'm planning on getting a universal player within the next few months, so I can play dvd audio discs. Probably the Ayre DX-5. Headphone rig only for now, so stereo only. I noticed some dvd audio releases are advertised as a standard cd and dvd with 5.1 surround. If the release does not specifically mention a high resolution stereo version too, will the surround mix not get sent to stereo correctly? I want to avoid getting something if I can only listen in surround, basically.

Just got the PS Audio Newsletter, this replaces the DL3. Looks pretty interesting..... http://www.psaudio.c...players/nuwave/

I'm going to be upgrading my SACD playback soon. I've taken an interest in this player. Looks like it offers native DSD, which is what I want. More interested in that than getting 20 playback combinations from the Esoteric. I realize this has digital input and no USB, but I dont currently give a damn about computer based playback, I like just grabbing a disc these days. I doubt anyone has actually heard the thing, but I'm just asking if anyone sees anything that should make this instantly disqualified when only considering sound quality and build/design quality. I dont know we can tell if the balanced output is done 'correctly' from the pics or not. I…

Right direct from Oppo themselves on their Twitter page: https://twitter.com/OPPODIGITAL Best bets: Dual core at least, 4k, latest Marvell QDEO video processing, wouldn't be surprised to see a higher end variant come out in 2013 to succeed the 95. Overall, I expect to see further improvements and streamlining/addition of features for the Internet, streaming, supported files, etc. etc. That's been their cycle to a tee and it's a safe bet it's going to happen again here if that's anything to go by. Stay tuned.

I am looking for a good way to implement a music distribution system in a largish space. The space is ~10,000 sqft with several rooms and several levels. The space is a noisy workshop, so audiophile sound is not really a consideration. I would like to have multiple nodes that play music and that can be synchronized, or be used independently. The more wireless the system is, the better. I would like to accomplish two distinct things: - the first is to allow multiple users to play music from a central server to one or more nodes. - the second is to allow users to play music from a device (laptop/phone/etc) to send to the rest of the system. There is a large ser…

Any thoughts on the upcoming Schiit Audio Gungnir dac? Is their "adapaticlock" circuit really that unique or just good marketing? The rest of the dac (upgradable dac and usb) and fully discrete balanced output looks pretty good.

I swear to God I won't buy anything else if I can afford this http://www.bladelius.com/products/bladelius/media-players/embla.html Never heard of this brand. Anyone has?

Folks, been out frm this stuff for more than 1 year UNTIL Justin reminded me to pay up the balance for the BHSE. TBH, been considering for a refund since already quite content with what I have now and moving onto other hobby. But as soon as Justin posted the finished amp as per my order @the other site, my heart melted. Got drawn again into this mess. Currently I'm running KGSS+007mk2 with Stello DA100 on USB and been a happy camper for the last 2 years. With the arrival of BHSE (and the departure of KGSS), you guys think I have a reasonably good source? For the past 1 year the improvement of DAC seems very tremendous to me, theres W4S, NADM51, Eximus, Audio God Ref 1 …

World's first 384 kHz converter, phono stage preamp and headphone amplifier with an integrated atomic clock Rubidium Atomic Clock Rubicon is the first DAC to integrate a Rubidium atomic clock, which is 100,000 times more stable than a traditional crystal oscillator. Coupled with Antelope’s 64-bit Accoustically Focused Clocking technology, the Rubidium achieves a breakthrough in jitter managment, improving the sound quality in an unprecedented way. The same technology is implemented in the company’s flagship master clocks used for scoring blockbusters such as Avatar and available at the best recording and mastering studios around the Globe. http://ant…

As someone who thinks standard 16/44 redbook sounds fantastic, I'm pretty skeptical about this whole hi-rez 24-bit movement. I did some blind testing with a buddy and I thought our results were worth posting. I'd love to hear what people think. TL:DR Folks: Just read the BOLD stuff. So my buddy and I conducted a few blind tests to see if we could hear a difference between 24 and 16 bit versions of the same tracks. We used two albums, the 24/96 version of Alison Krauss & Union Stations Paper Airplane from HDTracks and a 24/48 rip (using dbPoweramp) of Tool's Lateralus HDCD. Obviously using the same tracks but with different mastering jobs from different versio…

http://nwavguy.blogs...c-released.html Audio Formats: 16/44, 16/48, 16/96, 24/44, 24/48, 24/96 Interface: USB Audio Class 1 Native Driver OS Support: Windows XP & Later, OS X x86, Linux Operating Systems Tested: XP, Vista, Win7 (32 & 64), OS X Snow Leopard, Ubuntu 9.1 32 bit Line Output: Approximately 2 Vrms into 5K ohms or higher Dynamic Range: > 110 dB A-Weighted Distortion: < 0.005% Dimensions: 49 x 58mm (see drawing to right) Claims aside with this specs for 100$/£ sounds like a nice deal.

Did anyone see this? https://schiit.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=0&products_id=11 Sounds promising. They seem to have been building pretty good products in the 200-400 price range and it's nice to see them getting more ambitious. Specs alone look quite good!

Just wanted to start a thread about this dock. Not sure how many have use for a product like this, but I did, and someone else may too. I'm very impressed with build quality. The remote is simple and it works well (unlike the Wadia dock). As for the sound...well it's as good as what you put onto your iPod or iPad. I've been very happy, and the unit works better than I had hoped for. To say that I haven't reached for a CD since the dock arrived pretty well sums up my feelings. The one quirk I have noticed is that the dock needs about 2-3 minutes from the initial docking of the iPod/iPad to play well. Before that interim it will have dropouts every few seconds. If you…

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…

Ars Technica just published a salutary article on studio efforts to improve the sound quality of iTunes and other digital tracks. http://arstechnica.c...he-ipod-age.ars I'm glad there's good news about digital, for once. There are still many technical limitations, e.g., the iPhone still has much less storage space at 64GB than the iPod Classic at 160GB. Each portable can only hold a small slice of a decent music library encoded at low compression or in lossless format – never mind high-resolution files. There's also the tradeoff between battery life, device size and price. The HiFiMAN HM-602, for example, only has 8GB. You're really sacrificing capacity for qu…

Although at $5k it's a pricey bugger, it's still not a complete outrage relative to a lot of the top shelf stuff. But what's interesting is the approach. Seems new and completely different to me, but maybe that's just what they want me to think. I'd be interested in knowing what the technically inclined among us (i.e., those who know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to these things) might think... http://www.parasound.com/news.php