jp11801

I am remain impressed with the duet in my rig and feel that the apple only core audio is most likely the reason for the great sound and low cost. This is one product that breaks the price paradigm and show you don't need to spend $2k to get great sound. To me the sole quibble is the klonky breakout cable is a PITA for home audio use but is a small price to pay for the duets price to sound quality ratio. For $1300 you can get the mac mini a 750gb hard drive and the duet and have enough space for over 1500 cds

well the one and only time I heard the new Grados was at the meet I held in San Leandro. I have a vintage brown leather pair and FooMe brought his new RS1s and there was no comparison to either of us. I felt a little bad telling him I thought they were way off the money but he readily agreed that the new ones sounded off. To me they were muffled sounding like a blanket was cast over the music. I am pretty sure he sold they pair quickly and tacked down a vintage rs1. That said it is a personal choice as to whether the oldies are worth the scratch. Having heard the brown leather and next series after that the black leather no serial # they sound alike to me and are a much better value on the used market. I would not buy a new pair of these after hearing what they used to sound like.

the volume scheme on the software is set up as attenuation at max you are at 0db attenuation and as you lower the volume knob on screen it shows how many dbs of attenuation at that setting

I set the volume for max there is a knob on the unit as well as a screen interface for volume I just tried it with front row and yes it works

Aaron having been to your house and seen the pawn shop of gear you have piled up...

ok here it is a cosecant/pico/duet throwdown

Al has a bad case of the stutters

I am going to have to disagree with your positioning of the mac mini. It comes bundled with ilife 08 made specifically to handle home entertainment from apples mac mini page "Live the digital life in stylish simplicity ? up to 39% faster.1 Just 6.5 inches square and 2 inches small, Mac mini lets you have more fun with your music, photos, and movies, more quickly and more easily. Enjoy them up close or far away with the included Apple Remote. The most affordable way to Intel Core 2 Duo, iLife ?08, and Front Row starts at $599." so Apple highlights music, movies, photos and a remote to me that is a home media server? YMMV

I really want to hear these hopefully they will attend MOA

super hemps from Omega Audio are 37hz to 18k I would not call that a severe limitation in the frequency extremes http://www.omegaloudspeakers.com/superhemp.html/url]

to me the duet has deeper bass, potentially better detail and images better than the cosecant and the cosecant provides vocals and instruments in the midrange with more body and warmth. Mike you and I see the duet in different terms or are describing the same thing very differently. I see the duet as faster, maybe more dynamic and brighter but you has described it as warmer. I would not classify this dac as being warm at all it reminds me more of the ayre cx7e fast detailed , great image but maybe just a touch thin in the mids (or accurate and I have become used to mids thicker than natural?) Either way I would unconditionally recommend the duet to any mac user who is looking for a great dac under 1k that punches far above its class. By way of tech data this unit is said to use Cirrus CS4272 dacs I know nothing about then other than they are a 2003 design according to the Cirrus page. Anyone know anything about these chips?

I'm not kidding but I may be stupid but I do not see it as a breakthrough office audio device, you can laugh at me if I buy one 1/1/09 [mod edit] changed to reflect author's real intentions...

yes I lust after car crashes my secert is out you got me, hey will the wadia also interface with my police scanner I use to track down these car crashed so I can hear the dispatch is 24/96??

Billy as usual your post confuses me as this product is meant for HOME ENTERTAINMENT HELLO isn't Wadia a home audio company, if not the home where is it meant for if you say the office I am going to crap myself laughing as the press release talked about how easily it fits on a racj space meant for a HOME the comment about China was in reference to people wondering how a company that can't make a remote for less than $200 can make this for $349. It was not a knock on potential sound quality. In closing Billy Wadia is a HOME AUDIO COMPANY and the market for a mass market price point item would be the home. Billy you may not be aware of this as an independent business person but most people in the working world work of a cube dude so the office market is really small. Seriously just for a minute think about it most everybody has a home stereo as opposed to the extreme few that have office stereo rigs. Yes the numbers are higher here duh because we are a site made of of audio freaks that do shit the average person would never do. The comments about options are not stupid have a point rather than by this years audio equivalent of a furbie why not buy something that has actual value. I am a huge advocate of the mac mini as an A/V hub for Home Entertainment and fully believe a mini is vastly superior and flexible to this adaptor. I was really inclined to just ignore your post but lust like a good car crash I couldn't just walk away

I did technically cheat though I bought a guitar on the 1st after having the meet to buy the guitar cancelled on the 31st but the money came out of the atm on the 31st??

bought this new years eve

Mike get busy and start doing the three way comparo Duet/Cosecant/Pico get off your ass well maybe sit on your ass but just get started on this Who is going to build a high quality breakout cable with bling rca cables

well yes and no it is meant to be very transportable and would function in a similar fashion to the pico with a laptop. The Duet is really meant for musicians that record through an apple computer and it's ins/outs are set up for that purpose as is the firewire power solution so you can run off the laptops battery while recording. The fact that our hobby can use it is a cool happenstance as it was not designed with our community in mind it was made for the recoding musician. This makes it really easy to record anywhere all you need is a mike and you can lay down multitrac recordings sans power outlet.

this does not compare to the pico or any dac for that matter, all this unit does is figure out a way to get the digital data stream out of the ipod for use with a dac in theory it should have no sound at all unless it minimizes or adds jitter

probably not but it may be close and besides new that player is north of $2500 and the duet is shiny

while I am mac biased for home entertainment even a new mini 599, duet 500 750gb hard drive 250 is 1350 and I think this beats any 1350 cdp I have heard

now all I need is a DIYer to make me up a high end breakout cable

Ok so I spoiled the entire review/impressions thing with the title but I am just that enthusiastic about this new piece of gear from apogee http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/duet.php The unit itself is designed for the recording musician on the go. The unit is powered by the firewire port and that port also serves as the digital in as well. There are NO other digital inputs on this unit and it is designed for Mac users only. The analog ins and outs are acessed by a breakout cable. The analog outs are 1/4 mono females and are meant to be hooked up to powered monitors for audio playback of tracks you have recorded or to monitor recordings as they happen. There is also a 1/4 stereo headphone jack that produces pleasant but not outstanding sound. I hooked this up to my system with a little ghetto magic from Radio Shack, I purchased cheapie 1/4 mono to rca adaptors from them and then was able to use my regular rca. This unit does not provide balanced outputs. After a quick download of the software from the apogee site I was up and running. Right from the first note this bar is a kick ass winner. The unit throws a wide soundstage actually wider than my current favorite the Wavelenght Cosecant. Images are incredibly detailed and have extremely defined placement on the stage. Bass is deep and tight and kept suprising me over and over again while I listened to this dac. Now I did switch to a poorly recorded/mastered track Jump (Van Halen) from the hits cd and yes the sibilance and bright highs are oh so present but switch to a good recording Eric Clapton unplugged or Kind of Blue and it sounds killer. This dac reminded me in a way of the Ayre cx7e cd player in that is has great prat with a highly defined stage and killer bass. This to me is saying alot since the ayre is $3k and the apogee is $500. What could account for such great sound in a small low priced box ? We'll I don't know too much about components and layout and why certain choices make great sound but my conjecture is uses just one digital input firewire so it can optimize for this power is provided through firewire port [*]is shiney and we all know shiney sources sound better I have owned the transporter, ayre cx7e, wadia 302, exemplar 2900, apogee mini dac and the wavelenght cosecant and beleive this unit holds its own with this group. It is probably not as good as the exemplar or ayre but I might pick it over the transporter, mini dac or wadia 302 I'll be doing some more listening this weekend but so far I am really impressed by this dac. I am lukewarm on the headphone section as it is ok but not what a typicall user here might be looking for.

hey don't be cranky about being cranky

the transporter was ok when I had it, a bit thin sounding to me, the output stage is probably where they failed the dacs they used are supposed to be great.