dreamwhisper

The DAC1 sounded like glass breaking to me. I am liking an ESS Sabre based Dac recently. I missed the AKM chip fad, so maybe someone else can comment on the those. I’d be curious to try the Topping D70 Pro Sabre, due to the form factor and marginal upgrade over my all-in-one mass drop Ess/thx 789. The real appeal is in a few years relegating it to living room duty, and using the Bluetooth function for easy uses. Makes me feel a little bit of the Swiss army feeling I got looking at the NAD M51. Impossible to tell with just measurement data. But the mid-fi DAC game is like playing whack-mole with compromises. I’d be happy if something sounded marginally better than my iPhone dac, and has balanced outputs. Rebook only is still a thing. I recently saw a PMD100 surround sound Dac for cheap that looked cool. I’m not sure how the components hold up, and can’t justify used gear unless I see internals these days.

I'm just finished school about to be working as an electrician and my teacher swears by butane soldering irons. She's had the same one for 20 years. It looks like they can be used for melting heatshrink too. Does anyone have any experience with these?

Hey Ricky, You're welcome to give me a call this weekend if you'd like to chat about more history about this unit or this transaction. I didn't do any of the modifications on the Assemblage, but that electrical tape is good until 600V! This is however, not the right application. Cheers

Happy belated birthday bud!

Good question. My theory started with blocking the bottom vents on my DAC, and noticing how the tone got warmer and denser. (after it heated up for 30 minutes to an hour) I periodically tested the heat of the unit through listening sessions by touching the top with my hand. I noticed there were more microdynamics (or plankton or w/e) but what was more interesting to me was the detail within the tonality itself. The contour became richer as it was warmer. It even would become 'thicker' after a few hours. I decided to let the vents function normally and still tested the heat on the top of the unit, and kept noticed improvements as well. You're right, it could be perceptual bias because I missed the thicker warmth of the DAC when the vents were blocked. But either way, I performed enough tests for myself to decide that heat indeed played a role in the presentation. Whether it was heat causing second order distortion so the distortion sounded more organic, or simply the components 'warming' up, I can't say. Now that I have a tube amp I listen at much higher volumes, so I'm more interested in the microdynamics than the tonality, go figure. So tonality isn't as much of a consideration to me, and microdynamics are boring and neurotic to listen for during a listening test. ...Unless I've got BBQ and beer in front of me, but how often does that happen.

Nice review Tyll. Is it more neutral than the HD600?

In my opinion my DAC sounds better when it's left on for around 36-48 hours. It's almost a big enough difference that I'd think they were 2 different DAC's. So I can understand why a first impression of the Yggy would be better done if I left it on for a while first. (especially if I was running a comparison) If the unit is more ventilated than usual, or the circuitry is more sophisticated than my reference, I would adjust the warm-up time accordingly. Not to say a DAC doesn't sound fine cold but if I were to make a serious impression of one I would leave it on for a bit. This has just become noticeable for me recently in the last few months.

Happy Birthday!!

I wouldn't know anything about getting outbid on Mr. Sneis' Lambda Nova Signature in the last 4 seconds. Nope, wasn't me. It ended at $455, not bad.

Happy 30th!!!

@nopants, I'm not sure what the difference is. Supposedly there's an elastic band method to improving fit of the original W5000 . I've only tried bending the headband myself and it wasn't enough.

ATH W5000X 1

I'll get one in about 5 years, when they release the updated boards. That's the whole point of having socketed boards. There should be some update in 3-5 years, might as well save on the shipping. Am I desperate to upgrade? If I had speakers yeah, the only R2R DAC I heard sounded amazing on speakers. Right now I just need to get some vinyl before the records I need cost more than I can pay. (one is at $150 already... fml)

I've never heard of the band, but this looks amazing. http://enjoytheride.storenvy.com/collections/27394-vinyl-records/products/1849893-hrvrd-2xlp-the-inevitable-and-i-3rd-pressing-red-beer-swirl-with-blue-sp

I agree, Vitalogy is a great album.\ Lately, I've been enjoying vinyl rips a lot with my Stax rig. I feel like the Stax speed and minimal-grain approach transfers the mechanics of vinyl rhythm in an intuitive way. My observation is: since vinyl is mechanical, the more dynamic parts of the music seem to flow a little quicker as the vibrations move the needle faster, jumping over hills, and imperfectly across grooves. This lends itself to a more natural presence particularly when there's /midrangeinvolved. I'm not sure it has the same effect on electronic music. But overall, the more complex/dynamic parts of music seem 'quicker' and the build-ups and the single melodi parts or melodic counterpoint parts seem very steady, and slightly 'slower' in comparison. That also gives the music an opportunity to 'breath', but overall I perceive it as a 'new' dimension of pace rhythm and timing. Whereas my HD800's seem to reveal it just as a 'warmth'. The lack of dynamic range that makes some new CD's listenable is separate to what I'm talking about, but I started being a vinyl rip collector for that reason. When I do douwnload new (live band) albums, I usually do so as a 16/44 vinyl rip, and for the classics, I get 24/96 or 24/192 rips. Usually I need to keep the regular CD copy too, and occasionally end up having 4-5 versions of the same album. I keep the regular CD copy for when I need to convert one of the FLAC rips (vinyl or CD) to mp3 for portable headphones. Since the portable headphones I'm using are budget and not that resolving I find I prefer the compressed CD rips for my mp3 player. Posty, if you want some 24/96 vinyl rips, I have some access to some private sites online that share them. Just tell me what you're looking for.