Home Source Components

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…

I've been looking for an external DAC and found this Blue Circle Audio. Haven't been able to find out much about it. One Soundstage review which didn't say much. Sketchy on detail. I haven't been able to determine the chip used. Not much info on forums regarding this DAC. Talked to a dealer yesterday and apparently it's not selling well. Introduced in March, 2007 so it's been out awhile. Has anyone heard this? Or maybe the BC501? Any thoughts other than it is butt ugly? BC owners seem to be a rabid bunch and repeat buyers, which is saying something. The dealer network seems pretty much composed of TV repair guys. Now there's an industry that's just about gone. Not…

Got in the Seduction today. No SUT until at least thursday, so I swapped out headshells (once again, Technics for the win. I love having multiple carts on hand, prealigned for quick install) and went from the DL-103 to the AT440MLa so I could go ahead and give the Seduction a listen. Wide open, warm sound, lifelike midrange, very detailed without being too neutral or boring. The brightness of the AT440MLa is greatly reduced, which is a surprise. While I have always respected this cart, I am seeing now that it scales remarkably well with a better phono. My one complaint at this point is the bass is a little muddy and lacking definition. When the mid…

I did a search for Brennan here and both hits were well into necro territory so here goes: I'd never heard of them before (which doesn't mean much, as usual) but saw an ad for them in the WSJ today that got my attention. http://www.brennan.co.uk/itemlist.php/clasrefr/units They sell through Amazon and it's a Fulfiment by Amazon setup which is nice. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=bl_sr_electronics?_encoding=UTF8&node=172282&field-brandtextbin=Brennan What do you all think? What's the story on these folks? Anyone try out any of their products?

Got the Audio Advisor catalog in the mail today and the big push is on the recently-released $1,995 Bryston BDA-1 DAC, which looks quite interesting on paper. Any thoughts from the resident DAC gurus on the basic design? The manual is here.

Just thinking of grasping this but there're little reviews out there. I wonder how does it stand against other commercial DACs like the DAC1,DA10 and DA220MKII? And, most importantly, can it be configured to have USB input?

i like new toys

Does anyone have any experience with any of the docks that bypass the iPod's internal DAC? I'm thinking about buying such a device to use with my home DAC, and would appreciate any relevant info. I'm aware of the Wadia and the Onkyo, any others of note? A decent used Wadia 170i goes for about $250, and that's appealing.

Hi all. Since I'm getting in the Cambridge 840C, I was wondering what type of cable should I get for connecting the my 840c to my laptop? The 840C has coax and my laptop has S/PDIF 1/8". I haven't done this before as I'm guessing that I could connect my laptop or Ipod to the 840C and use the DAC in the 840c? I was thinking about getting Blue Jeans to make a cable to do this. What would you folks recommend. Thanks in advance .

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…

Silly name, but it certainly looks the part and the price is nice. Who's first? Press fluff follows.

Via Various leaks on the web. http://www.wickeddigital.com.au/index.php/2011-09-04-22-32-08/news/87-new-cambridge-audio-dacmagic-plus http://mundoaudiofilo.forumotion.net/t2096-cambridge-audio-dac-magic-plus Or use google translate on http://www.sempre-audio.at/Cambridge_Audio_praesentiert_DACMagic.id.1869.htm Pricing TBD ... But "Plus" built in Headphone / pre amp for active speakers might make this interesting for the desktop.

I'm not in the rarified source world that a lot of you are, but I've been looking for a decent sub $500 universal player. I'd been leaning towards the oppo, but found that Cambridge makes a universal that is pretty well regarded that has an audio-only setting. Anyone know anything about it? The few reviews I've' found make it seem decent.

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…

Apropos of nothing in particular, I was looking at speaker cables on Blue Jeans Cables. They have a four-conductor cable that's more or less a big-ass star quad mic cable. People apparently use it for bi-wiring in a single cable. It's so cheap they practically pay you to take it away. I need a short run of cable to go from the speaker outputs of a little tube amp to a powered subwoofer in my den. It's one of those deals where there's a speaker-level input and a crossover so you can high-pass the output of your amp to the main speakers if you want. I don't have speakers connected there. I just use it to drive the sub. I don't know the z-in, so I don't know how much cur…

Folks, I now have 2 rigs (amp+usb dac) and I have been trying connecting these 2 rigs into my netbook as transport. My problem is that the netbook only recognize 1 usb port so I can't play the songs to two different rigs by hooking it to 2 different usb port. Can someone enlighten me on how to make both of the rigs playable from one netbook ? Thanks in advance.......

Hi, I'm thinking of getting a Lavry DA10 but from the pictures I see, it only has XLR outputs. Can I connect it to my single-ended amp using XLR to RCA cables? Will there be any problems in doing so? Also, I don't need the headphone out on the DAC. Is there any DAC with equivalent quality but doesn't have a headphone out (and cheaper)? Thanks!

I am bringing my old Dual CS-721 (vintage 1976) out of retirement. I had some work done on it around 2002 and it works great. The cartridge on the other hand needs some help. It currently has an old Ortofon LM30 cartridge. A replacement stylus costs about the same as a new cartridge of comparable quality. Therefore, I am looking at alternative cartridges for this table. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated, especially from those using older direct drive turntables

Hi Everyone. I just heard the Cary 306 professional and I loved how it sounded. It had a bunch of detail and the highs sounded bright to me, but it didn't sound harsh or shrill. Also, every instrument and the vocals had it's own space. Overall it was just amazing. What is a good price for a used one? Also, does anyone know of a comparable source that may be a little cheaper? Thanks for any help or sugguestions.

Oz, at Let There Be Sound Just got in a few of these new USB DACs from Cayin. It has a USB in on the front of the unit as well as a mini headphone jack. It also has controls on the front of the unit, including volume control. It also comes with a remote. There are two DAC chips. Analog out 1 uses a TDA1543 and Analog out 2 uses a PCM2706 which is also volume controlled. The iDAC can be used as a preamp through the second analog out. I finally got into my music room to try it out. I am using it as a pre at the moment through a Berendsen STA 150 power amp and my System-Audio Ranger speakers. The only headphones I have at the moment are ER-6is. I haven't tried them yet. As y…

I'm considering getting a cheap cd player/transport so I can conveniently put on discs without the need to rip them first. I would be feeding (probably) the toslink to my miniDAC and from there balanced out to my Beta22. The player would need to sound at least as good as the ripped CD's do when fed from my H120s' toslink out. The player doesn't need to be portable and the only format it will need to play are redbook standard CD's. I've tried using my cheap technics system but that is thin and tinny compared to my H120. Are there players that fit this bill ? I will be saving up for a Cambridge Audio 840C in my future but as this will likely take until the winter…

Hi, I hope this isn't a stupid question, but anyway: How is a $2000 CD transport better than a $200 one? As far as transports go the output is entirely digital, there are no analog stages that can be affected by inteference/component quality/etc. So what's the difference? Digging through doesn't seem to yield any definitive answer. I wish I could A/B them, but unfortunately its hard to come by in my area. Thanks!

I got mine from Price Japan for $675 shipped EMS to the US. I like it a lot. Supposed to share internal design with Aqvox, but not as many options available at the front panel.

got a new transport to go along with the CEC DA53 dac. the build seems pretty nice (for a sub $1000 component that is) and so far I like the features and layout. it uses a belt-driven CD transport and comes with AES/EBU, optical, coaxial, and superlink (CEC's proprietary output using a d-sub 9-pin connector) outputs. haven't used it too much, and I don't have much equipment to use it with until I get back to the states (currently only have a Grace 901 to use as the dac and amp), but so far the sound is nice and seems to be a good complement to the dac. I'll put up pictures of it and some impressions later.

No doubt there will be plenty of announcements at CES 2012 of interest to us, so I thought I'd start a thread to keep track of the sources announced at the show . Who knows, maybe we can encourage Tyll, or other visitors to get a closer look for us. I'll start off with something that might interest Dinny CES 2012: Arcam to launch £2000 FMJ D33 DAC With the market now full of new-generation digital audio devices and sources, Arcam is proud to introduce its latest and highest performing DAC to date, the D33 SuperDAC. Using state of the art dual Burr Brown PCM1792, 24bit / 192kHz converters (one per channel), twin toroidal transformers in the power …