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barrows I am sure and I do know where they are made.

If you have ever been to CES the one thing you can't miss in the high end section of the show is how many Asian people there interrested in stuff from USA, Canada, UK etc. They take audio very seriously and always want the best. No offense to anyone in other countries, but I don't think you will do better getting a pair of speakers while you are away than what you can get here. Cables. That's a different matter. Given the amount of fake cables on the market, it wouldn't suprise me if over 50% of what ever cables you look at are not real.

Mick, I've heard nothing but good things about both the Blue Jeans and the Canare brands of cable. chg, Excellent post. That's a real concern. The only way to be sure is to use a really good dealer. Designmule in his post talks about The Cable Company. I have been using them for many years. They are extremely honest and reputable. I can't recommend them highly enough. Also, one of the good things about Audioquest is that they are not that easy to fake; especially if you stick with the DBS cables. Their outer jackets, connectors and DBS system are all unique to them. No guarantees, of course, but its much better than something more generic looking with off the shelf connectors like WBT or something similar.

"a company marketing external drives might also be paying a bit more to the actual drive manufacturer for specially selected or customized drives." I can tell you for certain that the external WD and Seagate 3.5 hard drives are exactly the same as the internal drives. I've taken a bunch of them apart and found no difference at all. I even took as WD drive and put in one of my Seagate external cases. Of the 2 brands, I like the seagate much better. Much faster and more reliable. The Toshiba/IBM hard drives are good as well. They are the quietest drives I have ever used.

I've had many brands myself, but overall I like Audioquest. They are one of the very few copper cables that gets rid of that bit of roughness in the high frequencies many copper cables tend to have. Its also important to note that I don't use cables as tone controls. If you match your components properly, cable choice becomes very easy. I don't mean to say that they are less important, just easier to get them right without having to worry about fixing something else in the system. Also, Audioquest is the only cable that I can use going from a single ended preamp that I sometimes like to use, to my Ayre amps without having to switch them to single ended use. With every other cable I have tried, I get a hum with the Ayre if I leave them in balanced mode. I am not sure why, but my best guess would be that they have good shielding. Mick the Kraken You started the thread. What's your opinion on the subject?

That's an excellent story. Ayre is a very reputable company that makes extremely reliable equipment. That's why I use Ayre myself. I've had a few warranty issues over the years and the really good companies always take care of you when you have a legit defect; even if it was well after the official warranty expires. 5 years from now, if your preamp breaks again, they will probably still fix it for free.

chg "xyz- Not joking about the break-in, just joking that someone should go out and get two 10-20K+ Wadia players just to perform the test." Sorry, I didn't think to mention this yesterday. You're right in that it would bee foolish to use stuff that expensive for a break in test. You can get the same results using much less expensive components. Break in amount will vary from component but its not priced based. I pulled the 2 extra units out of stock to finally try and settle another debate. Some might find this interesting, as I've seen the topic come up from time to time. So I might as well just tell the real reason I unboxed the Wadia's. We wanted to see just how much of a hit in sound quality you take when using a digital volume control. If you are not familiar with digital volume controls, one of the drawbacks to it is you loose some resolution as you lower the volume, so you try to keep it as high as possible. (Wadia give you dip switches that changes gain in fixed amounts and you fine tune it with the digital volume control.) Wadia says that if you keep the volume above 67 you can't hear a loss in SQ. The end result after quite a bit of testing was that none of us could hear any difference in SQ at any volume. We were somewhat surprised. I was pretty sure that we would hear at least a small difference. Also, we only used Wadia equipment so I have no idea if it holds true for other brands, as well. Getting back to the break in issue, as I was setting all this up I realized that any differences we heard in the volume control test might be due to break in. Needless to say, that was when I got the idea to do a break in test as well. As stated in my other post, The differences were very easy to detect. Sorry about any confusion.

chg I didn't think you were joking. Switching between 2 components, one broken in and one not broken in, is the best way I know of to listen for break in. If you want to experiment, you should be able to get similiar results whith something much cheaper like 2 pairs of cables. To answer your question about who would have all these Wadia products availiable to test, I was a dealer. I had them both in stock.

prufrock, "The thing with drugs is that there is always a price to pay. Most of the decent ones flood your brain with serotonin. Your brain then expects the flood to continue, so it under produces (the comedown). Its the old story of there being no such thing as a free lunch. There are a lot of people around though, who prefer to live with the peaks and troughs." This sounds a lot like one of your cable discussions. "The thing with cables is that there is always a price to pay. Most of the decent ones flood your brain with serotonin. Your brain then expects the flood to continue, so it under produces (the comedown). Its the old story of there being no such thing as a free lunch. There are a lot of people around though, who prefer to live with the peaks and troughs."

I'd like to find out if anyone is still using ATT&T ST and what brands offer it.

After reading the original post, I definitely wouldn't upgrade at this time. I think you need to have a more focused path as to what you are trying to do. You state that you are looking for a dac around $800. Why? What don't you like about your current dac and what do you need the new dac to do sonically? Without defining what you consider to be an improvement, there is a very good chance that you won't be happy.

It's a compatability or settings issue. Nothing is broken. You have conformation that the AA works when you use your computer as a transport. The AA is 2 channel stereo only. That means your computer was putting out a stereo data stream to the dac. I don't have an Apple TV so I checked their web site to see what types of audio formats it supports. I'm pretty sure all the formats listed weren't even out yet when your dac was made. So unless you can send the dac a redbook data stream, or trick the dac into thinking its getting a redbook signal (probably what you computer is doing if you are playing something other than a CD), its time to upgrade.

musicbuff "Which amps or receivers do the best imaging?" That's a really hard question to answer. Most well designed equipment today will be OK with regards to imaging. They need to be if they want to compete with other brands. In my own personal opinion, the best imaging I have ever heard from solid state equipment is Ayre. As far as tubes go, there are a lot of great choices. Until recently, tubes have had an edge in this area (my opinion, of course). Its hard to find a tube amp that doesn't image well. Currently I have a VAC tube amp and like it very much. If you give me a little more info on price, speakers, room, music, etc, I may be able to give you a more accurate recommendation. It's safe to say, though, that there is some great sounding equipment at all levels.

steve rb "As there are two coax inputs it was a pretty simple affair to AB between the same track, which we did on the Nagra. It was a huge difference, it sounded much crisper, etched, detailed, perhaps a bit toppy by comparison but definitely the 'better' sound. And this just doesn't compute, what the hell, its the same disc, the same DAC, just the 1s and 0s coming into it could possibly be different." There are many reasons why the Nagra sounds better. Here's a few examples: Better power supply (a good power supply can act as a line conditioner and isolate a component from noise generated by other electronics, more stable (from vibration), better shielding, the transport itself is a better design (as opposed to a cd/dvd rom drive), better timing (jitter reduction) and higher parts quality.

esldude "What I mean, is some seem to have the opinion that LP, analog etc. is inherently better, more musical than digital. Not sure if the OP thinks this or not. My point was that either CD or LP can be very satisfying. 80% or more of the time neither is because the recording is not very good. Bad mastering, bad music, whatever, just nothing worth noting. A smaller percentage are good, an even smaller percentage are great. I think this is true on vinyl, CD, reel to reel, MP3, DVD-A what have you. So if the Op had the idea by going to analog he would have tons of really satisfying recordings to use I believe he would be not so happy in the end. He would find a small percentage of gems, a majority of recordings that aren't good, and in the end not be any better off. Hence, my suggestion 5K dollars could be spent on something that would improve everything he listens to more so than investing in analog in the hopes of having better odds of better sound quality. So, buy one hundred LP's, and one hundred CD's. Maybe 15 of each would be good, maybe 5 of each would be great. Most would be non-noteworthy. The medium is a minor part of satisfying recordings. No single medium can guarantee you find music you are emotionally moved by. I guess one good example is Robert Johnson. Some don't like Blues music, I adore it. You can get it on CD, and earlier on LP, and earlier on 78 some Robert Johnson recordings. I believe there are only 39 recordings. It is said by some his ability to play all styles is what others at the time respected about him. But we only have 39 songs in the bottleneck blues style. It still sends shivers down my spine. It is at best 78 rpm quality, and not the best of that. You can get it on LP, you can get it on CD, you could get it on cassette I believe. The quality isn't there in any format. The music, the emotion, the communication of the harsh realities and dreams of human life are there in all forms. LP, CD, hi rez digital can all portray the emotional power here. None are really of very high fidelity. I am not a guitar player, I listen to him recorded singing and playing a single guitar and cannot see how it can be done with any less than two people playing. But it wasn't. And beyond any of that it can speak powerfully to a person." Thank you. Excellent answer. I don't know if I agree with your percentages; I feel that will vary from person to person. Your last paragraph on listening to music, just because you like it, and not based on format, is exceptional. In my opinion, that's the ultimate reason for getting involved in audio in the first place.