Ben Gramain

It's actually not for me. A friend has moved into a new place - which is very nice indeed but he does have a lot of the stark minimalist thing going on. The audio setup is new, and after picking the rest of the gear I gave him my spare Duevel Jupiters to play with, but the omnis just sound... well, weird in that setting. He's still using it but something else is really in order. It may be some room treatment is also in order, but the architect will probably be against it. I don't need reviews but just wanted some options I can throw at him, optionally the architect. Maybe decor-neutral room treatment suggestions as well. The house is still a work in progress. Thanks for the mention of the Chimera, a good reminder I hadn't thought about yet. I was offered an audition but I ruled it out for myself at the time. Something along the likes of this, or more maybe, is the kind of recommendation I'm after. Not hulking things, but practically usable high-end speakers. *Just to keep the green factor going though I am also replacing my Elgar Plus/Verona combo with the Scarlattis. No transport though anymore - it's all going to be PC based.

Open/closed doesn't really matter for the use right now. Since I've been out of head-fiing in general it's been a K701 for this use which got 'chaired', then the HD650 which suffered a far more inglorious fate. I figured also if I got a more expensive phone, I might be a bit more careful. I don't see anything I want to buy right now is the problem, even used.

Probably a question asked many times, but I'll ask it again. My HD650 is toast. I need a new pair of dynamics. And I'm far too profligate for $350 phones. What has a decent chance of being released that doesn't sound like ass (even if you owned it, useless meet impressions notwithstanding)?

Throw out some suggestions please. Room: Approx 10m x 10m x 7m with split level - system will be located within covered area Floor: Slate Walls: Very thick 'smart' glass on three sides, concrete on other Treatment: None planned Transport: PC, dCS Scarlatti stack Amp: ML 32 + 33H Budget: None

Cool, thanks. I'm going to keep an eye on this - looks like an ideal companion for my UMPC's.

Without resampling to 48K and back to 44.1K? I should have been more specific. Also, one other question - does the DACamp make any power demands on the USB port?

Thanks. sizewise I think the Home might be a tad too large. It may have to be a Desktop or something similar after all - for this particular use I'm not looking for a dominating behemoth.

Perhaps someone can answer this question. The Apples can deliver 44.1khz audio to USB directly, but what about XP / Vista machines? It's never been 100% clear to me. I'm over Apples, have moved back to the Windows camp and have a veritable wodge of portables and any of these would be what I'd want to use with a device like this

Oh right, cool.

Thanks. That was most informative. Perhaps you can answer this question for me as well - what's the size difference between the Max and the Home?

I'm mulling over the options. The source will be a laptop, possibly a docking station with a Lynx Two in it. I'll probably order a headphone out of the Headroom options to go along with it. Any opinions? I'll probably be going with Home modules either way, and speccing the DAC as a flexibility option. What does the ~$1200 difference boil down to?

If you search back enough, you might get more info - unsure. I know we talked about it for a while when it was more visible, and I eventually got one in. I wish I'd kept listening notes on that thing. All I can say is that I was not overwhelmed and sold it about two months later. But then, many amps which were discussed quite a lot back in the day on Head-Fi made relatively little impression on me while others were raving about it - like the RKV for example.

If you're not familiar with the D/Dock this question isn't for you, but I'm wondering if there are any practical reasons why I can't put a PCI soundcard in there. It's a half-length so virtually every card up to the Lynx should fit. H

Anyone tried the EM700 or the 700Ti's?

Audiotra Japan have an improved Dr.DAC out. I've always wondered what that's like, it seems like just the thing for basharound 'point to point' use with a laptop. http://www.audiotrak.jp/product/?audiotrak=DR.DAC%202 In terms of UK pounds it's less than an iPod, but I guess for you Americans it's probably a zillion bucks

Library of congress already has the laser turntables don't they? I wonder what shortcomings they have.

Yeah. The more I listened to the EM7, the more I was reminded of the Etymotic effect. Remove the bass of a mediocre-sounding phone and it automatically becomes more ethereal and precise sounding. I remember listening to () by Sigur Ros a few years ago on the train with the EM7 and it made quite an impact. But in reality, EQing out the bass of a PX100 would probably have had the same - or better - effect.

This is the Apple Mac effect - if it looks good, you tend to ignore everything else.

Thirded, or fourthed, whatever it is. Just watch out for people like this. If she asks, bang away.

All you have to do is to visit the Dell site, go to support and type in your service tag. Then provided the fitout hasn't changed, you'll get a list of drivers. Aside from that you can use any old XP disk - although if the drives are SATA you'll need SP2 CD.

Not really. They're fine but in the time I owned the HD600 it never inspired or 'stabilised' on me, even when using it with an amp that was very sweet with the DT880.

It didn't occur to any of you to move them around a bit?

I'm not sure where people get this opinion from. The problem with the iPod is a bad EQ which 'dum-bass' types equate to sound quality. No more no less.

Amazing they'd do an iRiver and make such an elementary mistake.

Regular CD ripping services dont cater for DSD data which is why I was asking. Maybe I wasn't 100% clear so I'll just put it in more detail. I have a stack of SACD-only discs which I can downconvert (in the digital domain) to 16/44.1 CD if I so wished on my current SACD player. But this takes place in real time. It's just a colossal hassle to record it to a PC. So I was wondering if there was a service that did this for me.