Home Source Components

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…

heard the AMR CD-77 this morning. a/b'd it with the reimyo -- brief impressions to follow...

mercenary audio said they should have them in stock again next week or so. yay.

Cambridge Audio 840c Impressions/Comparisons This is going to be a two part review. Up first is part one the Impressions section. Part two will be a comparison of the 840c against the GNSC Opus 21 and APL Philips SACD1000. Equipment Used Pre-amp: Modwright SWL 9.0SE Power amp: D-Sonic Magnum 500M Speakers: Selah Audio 3D Other CDP's: GNSC Resolution Audio Opus 21 and APL Philips SACD1000 Impressions The Cambridge Audio 840c has made a pretty big splash in the audio world. It has received numerous accolades including The Absolute Sound's Robert Harley who proclaimed it the best cd player under $5000. Now typically I?d ignore that kind of praise especially f…

Hi all, I made a *slight* mistake in thinking that my Eastsound has an AES/EBU connection. Wondering if anyone has any inexpensive, but good suggestions for a dedicated CD transport [or CD player] with AES/EBU. The cheaper the better, though I don't want something that is going to fall apart on me. Thanks in advance, Jay

New DAC from Rega: http://www.rega.co.uk/html/DAC.htm Wolfson chipses. I like Wolfson chipses. Discuss.

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,…

About three or four years ago, I laid eyes on this cute(at that time) disc transport and thought of how expensive and useless it was- yet there was something in me that yearned for it ever since. I finally found a mint one in original box with remote and literature and could no longer resist finishing my digital rig. The thing is not cute. It is much bigger than I had ever imagined. It was made before I began middle school. It is just shy of 15 lbs, and is about 14" wide, 6" high, and 9.75" deep. The front panel is clean, with power button, red fluorescent display and buttons made of "flexible aluminum membrane." The controls are very unique feeling. They are li…

Hopefully this is the right place. For 22 years I've gone from not knowing what DACs are, or what EQ and DSPs are good for (didn't even know the term DSP existed), to experiencing the best sound quality I've ever heard through headphones, due to learning a ton this past week or so. I thought I'd share. I made some tweaks to foobar's DSPs that are all incredible sound-quality improvers. ...For headphones, at least. (I have Denon Ah-D2000s.) I'll type up a guide about it now! (This is copied from my journal. I wonder if it's a decent newbie guide.) Everyone's audio system is different, so the guide may not produce a purely positive result without further tweaking.…

Well I am fucking sourceless again . My Exemplar 3910 developed a problem in March. I sent it to the most experienced (at working on modified Denons)repair depot in the country. They took seven weeks . ,$320 including shipping, and it?s got a fucking worse problem than when I sent it to them . Now it?s going to be at least another $100 in shipping and however long it takes them this time. I?m not totally sourceless, but I am lacking a quality source. I?m pissed.

I was advertising for a used Zhalou with a zap filter discrete output stage on head-fi. I received this pm from Ori at Oritek .... Perhaps this would do the trick for you... I'm offering a modded Zhaolu D2.5A with a discrete output stage. In my opinion it has several advantages over the Zapfilter. We can talk about that if you have an interest in purchasing the unit. The price is $475 plus shipping. A second set of RCA outputs is $40 extra. I'm also offering now a discrete headphone amplifier option for $254 extra. It will drive any dynamic headphones with the possible exception of the AKG K-1000. I've tried a K340 and it is LOUD and clear! In addition, this hea…

It seems like I've been trying to do this for years and WFH may finally force the issue enough into the forefront that I do something. So, what I'm basically looking for is a stand-alone music server, with onboard storage capacity, decent library management tools, and a reliably updated GUI. I'm not against the obvious Mac Mini choice as I have external DAC options that make that doable, but would be interested in hearing folks other thoughts on this. Budget is not unlimited and the Brooklyn solutions of the world need not apply. I've looked and can't really find anything that gets me very excited.

New Squeezebox Duet.. http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_duet.html The remote does look pretty cool What do you think guys?

Yet another futher different dac. Seems like a decent product, the Joloda Glass FX tube dac. I agree, the name is a little pretentious. I have a Jolida tuner here somewhere, the JD 402. (Out of production now.) After digging around, there were a few places for a while that offered some upgrades to the unit, which caught my attention. And when I got inside it myself, I saw that yes, there were some obvious things to change that would be both easy and useful. For starters, caps, wiring, wire routing, tubes, etc. So on to the tube dac. A standard round of questions apply. Anyone heard it? Anyone have one? Anyone think this is a great/crappy buy? I'm asking …

Just in case people are interested in having a sample rate converter for Foobar2000 I just found this: A new resampler DSP for foobar2000 - Hydrogenaudio Forums I don't think the SRC is going to make my audio sound any different but I have also learned that they can do a lot of damage too. If you don't believe me look at the comparisons here: SRC Comparisons The one above is based on the SoX resampler which looks excellent in the test results above and has lots of options about phasing of the impluse response if you buy what Ayre says in that other thread. I went looking for something that had been measured to settle any misgivings I had about the PPHS res…

I was thinking of picking up this computer to use as a transport for the Pico Dac: The Dell Online Store: Build Your System It comes with XP Home, 1 gb ram and 8 gb ss hard drive. It's $299 and has a 8.9" screen. I would be running itunes only with an external drive connected to it containing the music files. It seems perfect as it has a small screen if any issues come up requiring reboots, etc. I would use the remote on my iphone. I had the mac mini, which was great but also had to have a separate monitor attached. This will save room and should do exactly what I need.

Have you ever tried one? Looks like siriouse 20kg shit to me, isnt?

I know that Audio-gd products are not popular here, but under my budget, I'm looking at Audio-gd NFB-11(Sabre32 9018 ) and NFB-12(dual WM8741s). Since they are the same design except for the D/A chip, I'd like to know how Sabre32 9018 compared to WM8741. There are negative comments about 9018. DIY'ers didn't like the fact that the chip cannot be obtained thru "normal means" nor even the white paper. MSB even concluded: "So the hot new 32 bit DAC is actually a 6 bit DAC! Right from their own white paper. It is undoubtably a good DAC for the mass consumer market it was designed for. It is certainly nothing of interest to the high-end community, especially as the the D…

Ancient Dac, but has anyone heard one of these? How does it compare to the Parasound D/AC-1600 I have? Supposedly the 2000 was touted as being a noticeable step up and was much more expensive (I think 2x the price) at the time. I see them come up a few times a year on ebay and was wondering if they're worth the 600-800 dollars they normally go for. I'm a huge Parasound fanboy and have wanted one for a while. Anyone ever hear one?

Has anyone had any experience with these? https://www.vinshineaudio.com/denafrips

Hagerman Bugle + DL-103 Associated Equipment: Technics SL1200MK2 Sumiko Headshell Cambridge Audio 840A Quad 22L Introduction I remember when I first got into vinyl blah blah roy gandy is a swell guy. The Story While the DL-103 > Cinemag SUT > Bottlehead Seduction sounds great with rock recordings, I've been experiencing some brightness when listening to certain jazz records which I know aren't mastered bright (Hoffman 45s). After trying to do everything I could with my speakers (move to and fro front and side walls, toe-in), and confident that my cartridge is setup perfectly, I remembered something I read about cartridge brightness usually ha…

Hey Guys, Anyone have any thoughts to share on Linear Tracking tone arms such as this Clearaudio Master TQ-I: I'm thinking of going in for a vinyl setup and one of those setups would have this tone arm. From an engineering stand point, it seems to me that a cartridge would find it easier to track in a linear tone arm as opposed to "traveling" with the grooves in a pivotal tone arm. Thats just my initial thought, but I would love to hear some opinions before I make any plunge Thanks!

Has anyone heard the Esoteric D70? I'm thinking of buying one used for ~$1500. It seems like a nice deal to me, but I've heard that it is on the cold/analytical side. I'm a little worried that it might sound too cold/analytical/sterile with my Headamp KGSS and SR-007. Also, it seems that Esoteric isn't very well-liked here. What is the reason for this? Any information on this unit would be greatly appreciated.

I can't find it on the HR page, and Google searches aren't turning up much that is useful. It's still pictured in a few of the HR-BUD photos and a PDF of the manual is still online, but that's about it. I did some preliminary searches on head-fi, but I can barely navigate that site these days. If it's in fact gone, it seems like an odd move to me. The "build your own Max" option of buying a HR-BUD, HR-UDAC and DPS is no longer possible. Not to mention the lack of a top of the line source for the HR power amps + Harbeths. Where's Tyll when you need him?* *Yes, I realize he's no longer directly affiliated with the company.

A little bit back I sold all my dynamic stuff and went complete electrostat. I was tired of the admittedly lovely, but nit picky Grado GS1000's which sounded like god on certain stuff but which would fall apart on certain other tracks (think early 80's, very thin, sharp in the highs Husker Du tracks, etc.). I haven't been disappointed with the decision. The Stax SRM-323S amp ... Stax SR-307 and Koss ESP950 headphones that I chose are pretty much a dream combination in so far as working with my entire collection of digital music which spans everything from Black Tusk to Bach to Dana Kurtz to Alela Diane to Judas Priest to the Swans. Pretty diverse and on constant rando…