Eric5676

That ain't bad.

I wonder how the Bel Canto DAC3 stacks against this thing, since they're in approximately the same price points and features?...

Yeah, that's where the alarms started going off in my head for sure. In one of the emails he and I exchanged there was the suggestion that I buy a "good, quality cable at least $400 for this coax audio cablewith a BNC connector on at least one end to get the most out of this BNC 75 ohm mod off the DAC1" $400 coax cables? No!

Too bad we all couldn't have seen that.

Ouch. That bad, huh? I'll admit: I've drooled looking at some of that work he's done, but that instinct of mine has held me back. When you can look at a Turbomodded/Superclock 3/blah blah Benchmark DAC1 and somehow you're at three grand (?!?!)...it just didn't seem right to me, even though I don't have quite the background like some of the folks around here do when it comes to these sorts of things. Do any of you know where I can comparable (or better) mods/work like that done without being ripped off? I know of SACDMods off the top of my head...

I lucked out when I got it on sale legit for about 40 percent off of MSRP! Not a surprise. More often than not, it mystifies me when these companies put these shabby stock cables on otherwise great products. I guess it'll be a matter of "picking my poison" between those or Drew's Dragon cables should I take this shot. ^^ Yup. That seems to be the overall, general consensus on that batch of cans.

Sorry to bump this old thread but I was doing a search for something and it stuck out to me since I've been looking at Empirical Audio as of late and I've had probably about 5 days' worth of back and forth emails with Steve Nugent, who is essentially the one man operation behind the place. No doubt: He's smart, very knowledgeable and qualified. He's been gracious in answering a bunch of questions I've been firing at him via email. It's some great work he's done, but for some reason, my instincts on the whole matter tend to match here with yours. I suspect there are others around here with a much better background of knowledge and a common frame of reference who could comment more authoritatively one way or the other.

^^ That's another suggestion I've had several people throw at me. No wonder a bunch of you end up with half a dozen cans! For frame of reference: http://www.onkyousa.com/model.cfm?m=DV-SP1000&class=DVD&p=i and http://archive2.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=488569 Skim over the first 4-5 pages of that if you feel like it. Even has some pretty pictures in it. Interesting. I had no idea Denon had even put out a DAC along those lines. I'll look it up.

I'll look into this further... Done. Exploring this option... Wouldn't mind some recommendations along these lines. You aren't the first person to suggest this. I may very well get a pair of 650's in here for a direct shootout. That's certainly easy and relatively painless. I do love the 701's for their strengths and I found going to a Black Dragon cable helped those strengths and minimized their weaknesses a bit. Based on your second suggestion, I take it you would NOT recommend the stock Senns cable? If so, would you recommend Cardas, Equinox, or something from Drew at Moon Audio? I'll look into that, but right now I have all of my gear going into a Belkin PF60 and I've been very pleased with it.

Fair enough point.

You can see what my current, primary home rig for headphone useage currently is. My sound quality is fantastic except for two things: 1.) I need to find a way to inject some more warmth without taking away from everything else. 2.) There's a touch of harshess that shows up at times that could stand to be refined out of there. This is not an earth shattering, extreme problem. That being said, I'm considering all kind of things from an external DAC that would turn my Onkyo 1000 into a glorified transport, a different set of cans although I'd hate to lose the 701's strengths, possibly a new source outright, or maybe some kind of "accessory" like this: http://www.musicdirect.com/products/detail.asp?sku=WMFX10V3PSU I wouldn't surprise me at all if some kind of tube lovin' has to get into this picture one way or the other. Basically I'm wide open to the world within reason, as reasonable as our hobby can be anyways. http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?p=2756077#post2756077 Start from post 12 and work your way forward that gives you a better idea of where I'm at with all of this. Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions!

This is one of several threads that finally got me to register and get on in here. (I've had several invites and referrals over the last 6 months at least.) granodemostasa made a simillar thread to this at head-fi that somehow still hasn't been made a sticky. I'm glad to see that mistake not happening here. Thanks again!