Dreadhead

Looks awesome and the 1792A is a sweet chip. If you get one I'll love to hear it.

I was in the local whole foods and......

Yeah. As an update I have discovered if you use either the SE outputs on the back of Weiss the noise is much more in line with the balanced performance. Also I noticed that like a lot of other pro gear if you use XLR->SE converters the Weiss automatically bumps the gain 6bB and uses the SE output stage (much less noise, the DAC3 or Mytek do not do this but my DEQ does). So essentially as long as you use the signal as it was designed you get the very low noise floor (not as low as the DAC3 but very low) Not sure why Weiss would run that in phase noise along with the balanced signal but who am I to know.

Sony Qualia 010

No but Justin swears it will be done for CanJam. If it isn't no biggie though.

Actually I think the Mytek is excellent and is the best DAC I've heard for the money but as I've said before I'm in the school of over-engineering and the DAC3 is just more over-engineered. The noise floor doesn't make a practical difference but it is there and compared to other things I waste my money on in this hobby the couple hundred dollar price difference (I got the DAC3 second hand) isn't worth it to me. If I was starting from scratch though I would probably just keep the Mytek. I've already recommended it to friends. It is better to my ear and more accurate than the Benchmark DAC1 and every bit as good as the others in all normal usage. The front panel finish is rather "amateur looking" would be my only complaint. One thing is I am making this statement for the Mytek with the coupling caps jumpered out. I have not listened to it with them inserted in the path. Mytek recommends you jumper them out as long as you are sure your digital signal has no DC in it.

Well I'm keeping the DAC3 and sending the other two back. For the first time I used the SE ports on the GS-X and I discovered that the Weiss DAC2 has a massively higher noise floor when running SE heaphones out of my GS-X (audibly loud). I'm not sure why this would be but it appears that there is noise on the + and the - but it's in phase so when running balanced heaphones the result is much less noise but with unbalanced you get it. All I know is I'm not paying for it. My incoming Qualias do have a balanced cable but I also plan to try the SE stock cable. Also I discovered that the DAC2 inverts the signal at least compared to all the other DACs and the original signal (which doesn't particularly matter, but is odd). I found this because I've been messing with Audacity to compare the outputs of each of the DACs into a ADC I have and it works pretty well.

A pico. The music is mostly Vertical Horizon right now. Damn I want my Qualias but I don't want to drive to go and get them. I think this will have to wait until the weekend.

but the rat feces adds protein.

IP lawyer caught with his pants down On topic I use this: http://www.kramerelectronics.com/indexes/item.asp?name=VS-4X I highly recommend it. Not as cool as the Skipjack though.

I had a similar noise on mine after some blowing it went away mostly. Also it seemed smaller or non-existent with the E/90.

I hate articles that work with the premise that you have to make stuff cheap enough that people won't steal it. It pisses me off people who wouldn't think of walking into a cafeteria filling their plate and then running off with the food think that taking CDs/Books/Movies is perfectly fine because it's the content providers fault for charging for the work they put in.

So if I decide to ship my KGSS out to someone along with my DAC who should that be? I'm thinking of bringing it for a little comparison with the BHSE.

No Multimeter? Just a sinusoidal track and measure the ac voltage at the outputs and match that way. Or are the volumes not controllable?

+1 for me too. That's why I never return more than3 times

Nothing to be sorry for but your first point was not accurate because with resampling dacs like the DAC3/Benchmark DAC1/ Mytek Stereo96 the DAC chip operates at 24/192 because it's behind the upsampling chip and everything is upsampled to 24/196. The spec sheet posted on their website says 24/96 I did not go into the manual to find that it's "at least" which is rather hidden in my opinion. If they can do 24/192 then they should state it and they don't.

The DAC chip opperates at 24/192 (after the resampler chip) but what I'm referring to is this spec here for the inputs: Bel Canto

On a side note. I have confirmed that though the specs for the Bel Canto say 24/96 on the non-usb inputs since it use reclocking to 24/192 on the inputs (Cirrus CS8421) and the reclocking chip supports 24/192 then it supports up to 24/192. I'm playing 24/192 right now on all 3 so I'm sure it's true Weird that bel Canto only claims 24/96

Yesterday I rearranged the cables so that all three DACs are using the mogami gold interconnects I have (and hence look identical). I then had my wife reconnect them in any order she felt like so I am now doing a blind test I have no clue which one is which and I am not doing the test to find the one difference I found above (noise floor) and at normal listening levels I can't hear if I prefer one or another. I can't hear any difference One thing that I have gotten is that the Mytek is an amazing value. It's better than the DAC1 for about the same price. I have not tried out its headphone amp but I'm seriously considering one for me to take to work or a rig somewhere else.

Yay!

You are right! the quotation was more of a quotation but in retrospect came off far more sarcastically than intended. I apologize for the that personal attack even if it was not intended to be personal to Craig. That said my beef with the way he does business is entirely valid as far as I'm concerned. He's in business and earning a rather healthy fee for it so I expect service for it. The outbid occurred at 11am Japan time which I believe leaves quite a bit of work day to tell me that it I have been outbid. Craid is definitely a gentleman to deal with and so are many other people out there in this world it does not mean that they run their business well. I really am very appreciative of the detailed explanation Craig gave here and in private but I will still never do business with them and I hope that the business model/site automation is improved soon (which it sounds like it will be). Again I apologize for the personal attack.

Well kuboTEN lost a customer today. It's one thing to offer a bid service that has delays because they have humans looking over the bids but not telling me that I was outbid for nearly 24 hours after I was and conveniently after the auction had ended is absolutely ridiculous. Many said that Craig is a "gentleman" but when you're dealing in things costing thousands that's rather ridiculous/insane in my opinion. Is it too much to ask the human that's entering the bid notify the other KuboTEN users that they've been outbid when it happens not 24 hours later. I think not.

Well I got worried because when I switched to my unused port of the switch I heard the output of the other DACs (WTF!!!) after checking some stuff it occurred to me to check and see if I could hear anything with the DAC actually attached to the port but not putting out music. I discovered that when the XLR port is attached none of the music leaks through from the other inputs regardless of amp volume. Disaster averted. Anyway this made me wonder what's that hiss? Well it turns out that the DAC3 is the only one of the DACs that when you crank the GS-X to max volume you still hear nothing. The DAC2 has some noise and the Mytek a little more again. At listening volumes you can't hear anything but it is a difference.

I would vote Headamp GS-1 (Heard as the single ended output of my GS-X) or one of the Headroom Ultras (unheard, but well respected).

Well the sale price was less than my max bid but I don't really know what the deal is yet. Who knows what the rules are because I think Craig was representing 2 or 3 people.