Home Source Components

Mainly due to a desire to try an amp with a more linear volume control I've picked up a TTVJ Slim with DAC, a Pico Slim amp and I'm looking at picking up a DAC only Pico all to compare with my current Pico DAC\Amp. To be honest I've been quite happy with the Pico DAC\Amp's performance so I haven't really paid much attention to the market over the last couple of years, is there anything else out there in a reasonable price range that I should be looking at? My preference is for something fairly small, battery or USB powered, that I can cart back and forth between work and home every day but depending on how the amp side of things shake out those requirements might not …

I can find very little about the Stax DAC Talent online. Has anyone here heard it and could give some impressions? I found someone selling it for about $300 U.S. dollars. Is this a reasonable price? After hearing all the great comments about vintage DACs I am interested in getting one. I listen through my Luxman amp to way too many Stax. I'm looking forward to your comments.

Emotiva Audio XDA-1 Digital-to-Analog Converter I saw a thread about Emotiva's $299 DAC on Audiocircle. I will get a chance to check it out at RMAF this weekend.

Oppo BDP-93 Networking Universal Blu-ray Player — Reviews and News from Audioholics There's a lot more to this article including pretty pictures so just click on the link. This is a no brainer for me. It's coming out around November of this year. I'll be preordering first chance I get. The 80 is discontinued. I'll be surprised if they discontinue the 83s vs logical price drops. That's the same video processor, probably slightly refined, that the now completely obsolete $2000 Pioneer 09FD has. I wouldn't be surprised if that's a new chip. ' There WILL be an SE variant to this new 93 well into 2011 sometime. I ordered an 83 direct from Oppo ba…

Size is getting to be important and looking for a small cheap CDP with digital outs. Coming to you all for help. Used fine. Haven't had luck finding much, but something along the lines of this would work. Otherwise seems to be more DVD players (though not always with displays) in this range. Basically going for a Squeezebox/Lavry/GS-1 rig so trying to keep width near or less than 10". And Dusty Approved Black. Anyone know of any CD models I should consider or DVD players usable with an external display? If only my DVD-2900 was about a quarter its size.

See Olive just released a lower priced model today. If the O3HD is like the OH4D (no O3HD page up yet) it will have a digital input too. $1K and DAC duty makes this a bit more interesting. Still seems a bit cumbersome to have another library for other devices (iPod, etc.), but curious if any here have experience with their previous models?

I just snagged up an Eastsound CD-E5 for pretty cheap and I'm crossing my fingers I won't have to replace the transport the day it arrives. Anyone still using this CDP?

Because of some Refence Recordings, HDTracks, etc. files, I started off my recent DAC hunt by eliminating any model that didn't support 88.2 or 176.4 kHz. Unfortunately, that eliminates a ton of DACs (MiniMax, Neko, etc.). I know several use the same chip, but not all. Some, like Lavry, expect even less standard kHz, so curious why these two 44.1 x X points aren't more widely supported?

I've recently bought a Lite DAC-39 second hand. At that time I did not have a proper coaxial line-out cable so I substituted it with a box-standard rca cable. I got imbalanced sound. So I bought a Zu audio Firemine and I thought the problem went away. But upon closer analysis, the problem persists in a different form. The left channel of the unbalanced output sounds "out of phase" the highs are pretty decent but the mids and bass are washed out. The right channel on the other hand is full bodied and sounds fantastic. I've troubleshooted my entire system and the problem definitely lies with the DAC. Both coaxial and optical inputs produce the same imbalance. I have alre…

So I have weed to enhance my listening experience, Grado RS-2s, and a Millet Minimax I'm almost done making. I just need a dac with optical input for my only listening source - a laptop with optical output. What would you recommend to a lazy stoner with $400 who wants to buy something through a link?

I understand the importance of wanting to bypass all of the Windows filters and crap to achieve bit-perfect output to feed a DAC, but what's with these converters out there with their own dedicated power supplies? Is that really necessary? I'm not technical by ANY means, but what I do understand is that they are basically taking a digital signal (via USB) and...converting it...to...a digital signal (via Coax). How should that process have any affect on the sound? And if it does, doesn't that mean you just bought a crappy product with a nice external power supply? Please, enlighten me, my head hurts.

Hi everyone I want to create a new bedroom rig to replace my old sony minitower. I will be using the next gen ipod nano that will arrive in september as the heart of the rig and then probbably the onkyo ipod transport, i can connect a dac to that via spdiff or coax but I am not sure which one yet. I want one with xlr output and either spdiff or coax input. I want to spend 400 euro max. I was thinking about the dacmagic but the little dot dac_i uses the seem dac chip and has xlr out although the rest of the chips or implementation might be different. It is a lot cheaper though. I was also thinking about the buffalo II with placid power supply and the line stage legatt…

Hi Everyone, I am planning to get a new bedroom rig to replace my old sony minitower. I am thinking of erecting it around the ipod nano and then using an ipod transport to feed the signal to a dac via spdiff. As far as I can check there are two choices currently: wadia 170i or onkyo nd-s1 ipod transport I was wodnering if anyone has tried either and can tell me about their experiences because I have no idea which to get. The onkyo is cheaper but the wadia is more widely available. Thanks in advance for any information Greetings, Anouk,

Is it just me, or is this bad timing now that USB 3.0 is finally on the horizon (and years after the Cambridge Audio DacMagic's launch)? I'm not sure what the list price is going to be yet.

Audiophilleo1 - advanced low jitter USB to SPDIF transport Thoughts folks? Load of crocks or something that works ?

Hi, I'm looking for some informations to my Pre- and Main-Amplifier Set from Luxman. I bought the set in 2003, and I can't find any information on the web about it. Luxman Limited Edition C-3 (Pre-Amplifier) Luxman Limited Edition M-3 (Main-Amplifier) The Back of the Amplifiers marks "Limited Edition made by The Lux Corporation Japan 2003" I heard, that in Japan this Set has been sold as "Copies" that are similar to a Set from Accuphase. Both Amps are built of the same components and assemblies as the Accuphase models. My questions: Is there anyone who knows these Amplifiers and who can tell me, how high a Collector's value would be ? In Ebay I'm looking …

I would like to connect the KGSS (balanced), Woo Audio 5LE (SE), and GS-1 (SE) all to the ECD-1. I was hoping to be able to have more than one amp on at a time (but at least not have to plug and unplug cables). Is it ok to have amps connected (and running) to both the XLR and RCA outputs of the ECD-1 simultaneously and will this degrade sound quality? This was my plan: |----(RCA)----> GS-1 ----(loop out)----> WA5LE ECD-1 | |----(XLR)----> KGSS[/HTML]

Folks, just got an O2 and when paired to kgss and neko d100 i ended up with a sound sig darker than well for lack of a better word, dark..... After switching around with sources i have, i settled with stello da100. Its much better and suit my taste more or less. I also liked dacmagic my friend had. Are there any alternatives dac that would complement this rig well? Say price ranges between 1-2k ? And those that supposedly bettered than stello? Any advice as always is much appreciated

I've had my CDP-2 for a year and a half now, and I really like it. It's the best source I've ever owned. It doesn't have all of the slam that the four DAC chips inside my Adcom GCD-750 produce, but it's much more nimble sounding. Oddly enough, it has great synergy with my 12L Actives. It's not a fair fight, but I prefer the sound of my CDP-2 to my humble Pico DAC (which is great for what it is.) In fact, I like it better than any of the other DACs in my house. The CDP-2 goes for $1200-ish new, AFAIK. What I'd like hear about is any DACs in the price range that best it. I read in another thread on here that the $1500 price bracket for DACs is a crowded one. A num…

Interesting. Halide Design Bridge Review | Computer Audiophile Thoughts?

I have been playing with idea of hooking up my netbook to my main system to play some FLAC files and WAV CD Rips that I got floating around. Most of them are HQ LP and CD rips of stuff that I can't find in any other format and that are rare as hens teeth. Burning them to CD is a nuance and I want to just play them using Foobar2000 feeding my DAC or just straight into a preamp. Not sure which way to go or what device to use. Do any of you use something like this? Have any suggestions?

Just got the June 2010 issue of Stereophile today and a review of this DAC was in there. Every important input (coaxial, optical, AES/EBU, USB), USB upsampled to 24/192, and it has both RCA and XLR balanced outputs - for $879! And it's also a headphone amp. I think I might have to try one. The review says the DAC chip is the PCM1796. Here's a pic (it's the one on the top):

Around the time I first joined over there it seems like there were fewer choices in DACs. Benchmark and Lavry seemed to be the go-to options, though there were certainly other contenders: Apogee, HeadRoom, Grace, Bel Canto, Monarchy, Channel Islands, and others, as well as various experiments in NOS: Ack!, Lite, etc. Then came Zhaolu, and it seemed to usher in a new micro-era of willingness to tread away from the beaten path. Audio-GD's extensive DAC lineup is a good example of the proliferation of options these days. I really have no sense for what the standouts are anymore (among similarly priced products). I'm not sure review reading is terribly illuminating, sinc…

Im looking for a new dac and I stumble across an Adcom GDA700. Has anyone tried this one compared to gamma 2. It seems the Adcom is a good choice, but im not very technical so I have not been able to compare them based on the specs.

Friend is looking to setup a cheap audio/video system and looking to spend $600-750 on a receiver. Anyone have a suggestion in this price range? He's leaning towards a couple Denon and Yamaha models, neither of which he or I has any experience with. Any help would be much appreciated. Thought of the Outlaw RR2150, but he wants HDMI if possible.