John Yow

I own a pre-Apex Bartok, this was before the big price increase of the Apex Bartok. If it compares well with the Lina, the used Bartok may be another good deal. Given that dCS products are built like tanks and last a lifetime.

Beautiful system. May I know if you are using the Tambaqui as a preamp?

Is the hair part at least replaceable at that price?

It would have been interesting to cover their history with Naim. Linn & Naim used to be a matched made in heaven before parting ways. Also, I do not agree that Linn was the pioneer in high end streamer. They may have been the first to charge high end price for a streamer. But as far as I am concerned, Slim Devices invented the network audio client/server genre with their squeezeboxes. Sean Adams was the genius who made a user friendly system for streaming audio over the ethernet viable. Many audiophiles saw the potential and hot rodded the squeezeboxes. And subsequently convinced Sean Adams to come up with a audiophile grade streamer called the Transporter. As I recall it was priced at $1,999, which was audiophile pricing but not quite Linn pricing. Linn's Klimax DS came a couple years after the Transporter. I remember bringing my Transporter to a Linn dealer to compare with the Klimax DS, my friend and I could not convince ourselves that the Klimax DS was 20X better, or if it was even better. Anyway, to me Linn's forte is still their venerable LP12, may be I am old school. For digital my go to marque is dCS.

Not sure why Naxos is considered a "audiophile" label. Naxos has always been a budget label with no emphasis on the performers unlike the other labels. it is kind of like a "generic drug" version of classical label. Focusing on to repertoire rather then the star power of the performers. It's principal is to broaden the discovery of new and less known music, and mostly avoid duplication of repertoire. I had the pleasure of meeting Klaus Heymann many years ago, he is true music lover.

OMG I cannot imagine not having to listened to Kate Bush. Kate is not acquired taste. She is a divine mystery! Surely you have heard Wuthering Heights

Sorry if this has been covered before. I have not read this thread for a while. Is there a 4K Blu Ray player out there that works with SACD ripper? thanks

Is there a release note to the latest firmware update after the support for the dCS Mosaic "platform"?

It would be cool to have a comparison review of the different streamers. I would love to read how my dCS Network Bridge compares with other streamers. A blind listening would be quite interesting. Candidates could include low end players like the Squeezebox Touch, Chromecast Audio and may be direct from a Mac Mini. And of course between same class players like the dCS, Linn, Naim, sonictransporter, etc.

As far as I know, Lumin is a product of Pixel Magic which is a 100% Hong Kong company based in Hong Kong's Science Park. Which is a high technology incubation hub. Their bread and butter products are set top boxes for terrestrial digital TV which I consider to be the best out there. Hong Kong is part of China, but the business practice cannot be more different. I thought I would like to clarify that because there are a plethora of electronics coming out of China, but only a handful of hardware companies from Hong Kong, and Pixel Magic is one that I personally am rather fond of.

Should've bought Naim? Sorry couldn't help it.

I am speaking as a long time addict of naim separates and Naim DAC, and a current Devialet 200 owner, the two approaches are diametrically opposed. With Naim you should be prepared to be forever climbing up the upgrade ladder with multiple boxes, and still feel somehow shortchanged glancing up the Naim upgrade hierarchy. With Devialet the general consensus is all three model sound pretty similar except for power outputs. And there is really not much point in adding equipment. At the minimum all you need is a networked computer as source. One of strengths though of the Devialet is of course the ability to add pretty much any source you want, be it a turntable or pretty much any digital or analogue sources In fact adding a Hugo DAC and hook it back up to the Devialet A to D would be kind of a pointless and potentially lossy exercise. Often times I miss the heady days of spending $ to upgrade in the Naim days. But then the Devialet's recent free firmware upgrade kind of quenches the thirst, without adding a cent. To satisfy my upgrade my upgrade urge, I am thinking of adding a DDC like the Audiophilleo or a Weiss INT204. But even those I suspect are just necessary toys. Different strokes for different folks i guess. Sound wise they cannot be more different, both are lots of fun.

My experience is the opposite. Both Wireworld Starlight and Audioquest cables feel very loose connecting to different DACs and source components. So loose that I was concerned about the integrity of their contacts.

Does anyone know if Amarra and Amarra HiFI play DSD transcoded to PCM and natively?