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blueixus

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  1. That is a great response from Brian Sowter, I am planning on going this exact route shortly on my AN style Dac!
  2. In response to Erwin S I believe it is much better than A3 Symphony with IRC which i use. A4 has an elegance, composure and clarity I have not heard from computer audio before. It will be even better with IRC I have not doubt unless you have a perfect audio environment - as for probably 99% of audiophiles I don't. The glitches are annoying but I have been on the Amarra road since 'dongle' day 1, I see no point in getting hot under the collar about it as they usually get fixed....Bring on A4 Lux!
  3. I think there is a lot to be said for DIY speakers, assuming you have the skill sets. 1) Designed specifically for the room and the position within the room 2) Lots of very good ideas and designs out there for inspiration 3) Probably cheaper if you are building in the mid to higher range - very difficult to compete with some good cheap speakers from volume manufacturers sourcing in bulk and assembling in China. 4) Tweakable (again to suit the room) 5) You know wants in them and exactly where the money has been sent 6) Some very good modelling software free on the internet (and some not so good as well!) I built these about 2 years ago, they have active bass drivers with Linkwitz Transform Circuits from ESP and a series XO on the bass/mids and treble units. They weren't that cheap or easy but they (IMO) have delivered excellent audio value, were designed for a very specific placement brief and response profile for the specific room. I learnt alot and may, time allowing build a V2 version but not quite yet.
  4. I have to admit to selling my Pono player when i moved from an iphone 4s to a 6. I found the sound of the iphone 6 Dac to be surprisingly good. I use a decent pair of Shure IEMs that can be pretty revealing. Regarding the apple standard player i have ditched that and use the rather excellent Denon app which i much refer. I really like the Eq in it which can be tailored to suit the source you are using, so Car, Kitchen Bluetooth, Headphone and can hold that preference. It is a really neat feature and sonically very pleasing. The Arcam device looks like a winner, I might quibble that it does not have the standard apple plug out, looks like a USB Micro B, but i will be getting my hands on one in the New Year!
  5. Hi there about two years ago I decided to create a decent USB interface for my Dac 2.1 (identical digital board as yours). It is possible to do. I used an Xmos based converter to take USB to I2S and then designed and built a new digital board that allowed the necessary interface to the AD1865, every other part of the board was pure Audio Note design. It sounded Fab, the Ad1865 will easily do 192kHz, but obviously sticks at 18bit. I foolishly then decided to rebuild the whole thing and it is now in the things to do list. A much easier route would be to use a good USB to SPDIF converter. The reason I choose against that is the CS8412 chip which is on the digital board will not handle higher than 96kHz. Looking at your digital power supply that might bear improvement, rumour has it the earlier kits had a better design using a separate transformer but remember most of the digital board is in fact digital/analogue PSUs and they are very good, so not sure how much more there is to be had. I am deeply envious of the output stage you have, and the I/V transformers....... My modded Audio Note was still the finest DAC I have had - I can't imagine what it would have sounded like with your output stage!
  6. Some time ago I bought a pair of Shure E5cs for air travel which I still use. They are IEMs, their noise isolation is quite excellent without any of the noise cancellation hassles (batteries, weight, complexity etc), they are light and small so I would definitely favour the Shure Se425 or 535 as a travelling companion.
  7. Chris you obviously feel strongly about TIDAL but the press respond to what they see in front of them at the press conference because that is what it is there for. For my money it was a breathtakingly arrogant and out of touch event and I think on that alone the press called it right. Stick some celebrities up there and then rinse the punter. Whether TIDAL is a good service and actually works was not really touched on, I worry about this, I also strongly suspect that TIDAL wants to be a celeb based entity as this is how it wants to portray itself. Personally I think the economics of TIDAL are a bad proposition. I reckon for the annual cost of TIDAL I could buy about 40CDs (a mix of new and secondhand). After 10 years I would own 400CDs, if had gone the TIDAL route and unsubscribed after 10 years I would own nothing. My strategy is to buy for keeps what I really like and use Spotify etc etc to fill in the gaps and try things out.
  8. The only two things I have done which I think added decisive real benefit was to move the passive crossovers out of my speakers into a stand alone case and to mount my DVD player on a decent isolation platform. The rest IMHO is not worth the hassle, probably varies if you have a record deck and valve based kit. I am sure others will have different opinions and experiences....
  9. Surely the key requirement is finding a dac with a valve stage output, as replacing the sound of a Croft is mighty tricky. In your shoes I think I might concentrate just on the DAC....£2k buys a pretty decent DAC.
  10. Probably yes to getting better sound going active. The power amps will have much more control on the drive units so the detail retrieval is much better in my experience. That said unless you absolutely need the very step filters that 8th order Xo can produce I would question their merit over the classic 4th order. The reason i say this is simple, the greater the order the greater the circuitry (most 8 order crossovers are built from 4 x 2nd order circuits) so they are expensive and put the signal through more processing. I have used a 4th order with great effect. I feel it is a good middle ground. You are using 2/3rd order so it would seem that you can deal with shallower slopes. I have no comment on the Xo frequencies, these look quite regular and I assume match your drivers capability. I use Dirac (via Amarra) and I am very happy with the perform coupled with active XOs
  11. My Pono player will not see the computer or vis a versa..I can charge and that is it. I must say the desk top software Pono used is without doubt the worst software I have used probably ever. Why is it such crud? It is a pity as it is a nice sounding player, what does the DSD option sound like?
  12. I tend to be with blownsi on this matter, the vast vast majority of material is PCM so i am sceptical of the DSD bandwagon, furthermore I also tend to feel that Dacs that do PCM and DSD tend to compromise PCM which IMHO is best served with proper R2R dacs that are a little bit out of fashion. The Metrum acoustic stable of Dacs are fabulous, I am also very interested in the new Schiit Yggdrasil which is a pure R2R Dac. Also as pointed out the second hand market for PCM only dacs is bulging...but then I am never a dedicated follower of fashion when it comes to the audio market!
  13. As far as music in TV shows goes I am still blown away by the last episode of Breaking Bad which featured at the end a track called 'Baby Blue' by Badfinger released in 1971, an absolutely perfectly chosen track. (amongst a many fine uses of pop/popular tracks across that series) Done well, (as in the already mentioned Mad Men), is adds to the piece. I have hugely increased my musical repertoire by hearing tracks in Film & TV. The cynical side is that money does, of course, change hands which can mean tracks are not that relevant but that is life... Good to see a mention of Hawaii 5-0, surely the finest TV sound track closely followed by The Avengers and Mission Impossible and The Protectors with 'Avenues and Alleyways' sung by Tony Christie
  14. I have spent a little bit of time trying to simply, streamline and speed up switch on whilst minimising electricity usage when the system is not in use, at present.... One switch activated by a B&O remote control, turns on my Sugden & Avondale Power Amps, takes the Arcam pre amp from standby to on and switches on my Panasonic TV screen as display for my mac mini. Mac Mini/Hard drives/Router, active XO & DAC are currently always on. Most of the management of this is done by a piece of kit from Lintronic that converts B&O remote signals into just about any action
  15. Currently i am running a Hugo which is good but i find DSD consistently too polite and rather dull, the reason for my choice of words "put up with DSD Dacs" is that to build a DAC that manages both DSD & PCM will reduce the PCM capability. For me PCM should be managed by R2R dacs but these are increasingly rare because they are expensive to produce, not because they are inferior.
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