cbarber

What is your reference DAC, Bill?

Getting back to Empirical Audio's work, I wanted to update the thread with some more info one can get from other forums or from talking with Steve: 1) It was said above the Steve uses M2Tech's OEM board. Steve actually designed his own board and just licenses the firmware and driver from M2Tech. 2) Barrows mentioned "Hopefully Empirical will incorporate a dialed USB interface internally in a DAC...rather than having a DAC and a separate USB interface" This is Steve's Overdrive DAC Version 4, which includes a new clock, upgrades to the analog section, and a preamp section with volume control. There are several people out there doing great work, and Steve is one of them.

Would love to see Steve back here as well. My experience listening to his gear suggests he knows what he's talking about and we could all benefit from that.

I'm trading off between listening to Steve's Off-ramp 4 with Turboclock, and some other setups right now. The Off-Ramp impressively boosted the performance of my tube DAC from Tube Audio Design (Off-Ramp to tube DAC via SPDIF), far and above other converters I've listened to. In a few words, the presentation is a lot more lifelike; can hear much deeper into recordings. Much more spatially accurate yet still full of foundation.

I've searched the forums - has anyone made this comparison? Thanks!

What amps are you guys using when going straight from the alpha DAC into an amp? Do you think the no-preamp setup would be superior to having a preamp that is perfectly impedance matched to the amp (like the Krell setups or PBN Olympia preamp and amp?) <br /> <br />

I've definitely found this too. I don't know if 1 or both of these are required, but I think this mitigates it for me: 1) Put something like Alan Maher's CBF filters on the mini's switching power supply. My guess is that the power supply has varying performance based on AC, how long it's been on, etc. 2) I got the computer perfectly setup and then imaged it (mac snow leopard). Then created 2 partitions and restored the image to both of them. Every so often, or if there is a system crash or something, I restore the image again. This way I'm always using a pretty fresh install of the OS. MORE IMPORTANTLY...HOW DO YOU LIKE THE DAC8?

At first read, I was thinking to myself you were talking about apple macs. I was picturing the lady hand winding transformers for...my laptop

Have a look at the 2010 TDAC by tube audio design. For me, bested two of the DACs widely discussed on this forum that are much more expensive. Quality USB/SPDIF converter and power conditioning is necessary. I'm using the jkenny modded hiface and Alan Maher's products. Sound is very organic, rich, and pure without being too clean.

The AC thread is here http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=74816.440

Folks, want to raise the suggestion again that you try out Alan Maher's circuit breaker filters (CBF) sandwiching your stock switching supply, plus a CBF on the DC cord, plus a CBF on the top of the mini where the power enters. A different solution that can migrate with you as you change computers. Anyone able to compare this to the other options we're discussing?

I've got the stock supply with: Tripp Lite Iso Transformer 250W ($100 on Amazon), plus 2 Alan Maher Infinity CBFs sandwiching the supply, plus 1 Alan Maher Sig/Infinity CBF on the DC cord just after it leaves the supply. All told this is $175. Really interested if there's anyway someone wants to try this setup up and compare to these other options. Very curious!!

In iTunes I definitely notice a difference between ALAC and AIFF. However, in Pure Music, I don't. Do others? I attribute this to Pure Music decompressing the ALAC file before playing it (with hybrid mode turned off). Does that seem right?

That's really helpful George, thanks.

Hi - appreciate you following up - but none of that seems to do it. Using Windows XP SP2.