Hopstretch

Bod Dylan and The Band -- The Basement Tapes

Ah, crap! Sorry Mike.

That's one of the core problems with computer audio. There are even more opportunities for audiophile voodoo belief than with any conventional source. Just go and peer into the gaping maw of lunacy that is the Audio Asylum PC audio board. More RAM = Moar bass. PowerPC Macs sound WAY better than Intel Macs. SSD's have better definition than conventional hard drives. And that's before even touching on the software side of the equation.

And why hasn't his user title been changed already? Local Headphone Enthusiast

Oga's just down Rt. 9 in Natick is about as good as sushi gets around here. But no one sucks until you do.

Scenic Framingham again? Hope she's at least taking the opportunity to eat at Sichuan Gourmet. I highly recommend the double-cooked bacon! Today I bickered with my own wife about stupid inconsequential stuff. Feel bad, though not bad enough to be the one to apologize.

"These aren't the kids you're looking for. They can go and get an icecream."

Walter Becker -- Circus Money

Suck it hard, Eejit!

Good gravy, chap, how many cans of worms do you want to open at once?

It will need a new receiver. I think they're in the process of porting the code over now. Last I saw, Charles Hansen from Ayre was suggesting they might be ready to upgrade the QB-9s in December, at a cost of $250 or so. Although -- as he pointed out -- there really isn't a whole heap of 24/192 material out there unless you're creating it yourself. From a relative value perspective, the new Weiss FW interface is $1,300 but has USB -> AES as well and does 24/192 put of the box.

Shades of The Onion, one feels.

I believe the pluperfect subjunctive is "twats".

They actually took a bunch, but they will require three weeks to upload.

You deserve each other.

I'd fuggin' love to hear them! The Human League -- Travelogue

Yeah, I've never had any interest in Wavelength's DACs. Too much toobophilia and associated deviant beliefs. But as soon as I heard he'd licensed WaveLink (his code stack for the TAS1020B) to Ayre, it was pant-wetting time. Gordon used to be a programmer and that side of things he has locked down. In operation, it's been completely bulletproof and really seems to do what it says on the box. Dan, it'll be interesting to see what j4cbo comes up with. From what I understand, it's a shedload of work implementing anything along these lines.

We'll have to see, but if there is someone who can get this right it's probably Gordon Rankin, since he obsessively measures everything and apparently hates jitter like I hate running out of beer. PS: Nobody gives a shit about BNC. Sorry.

I agree $900 would be too much for me. I would have hoped to see the full version at around the $500 price point. Although, basically you are getting a device that converts any computer into a high-quality, jitter-free*, hi-res transport. So there is real value there if you already have a good DAC. * I know, I know.

Price unknown, but if it's sensible they should sell plenty. Since this is almost certainly using the exact same receiver board that's in the Wavelength and Ayre USB DACs, it'll probably also be upgradable to support 192kHz sample rates eventually.

It's just that a lot of your prodigious tube-, amp- and headphone-rolling efforts seem to be driven by a nagging perception of a slightly bright/dry/brittle sonic characteristic in your system -- which is pretty much the stereotypical fingerprint of your brand of source. Seems like it would make sense to try some comparable front ends that might give you a slightly different basic flavor to work into your recipe. Maybe an Ayre C-5xe? And just to emphasize, I'm not trying to be a Smart Alec or to ignore the fact there are legitimate differences of opinion about the primacy of sources/amps/phones in building a system. I'm probably source-biased myself, if anything, which may be why it strikes me as strange in the first place.

It'll be interesting to see how the upcoming Y315,000 D-07 compares to the Y410,000 SA-50's DAC section. They don't have any English-language product info up yet, but maybe one of our Japanese-speaking friends can give us a precis? Esoteric D-07

That's what your Mom said!