User24

It's crazy out there, and tricky to know when to follow the crowd and when to go your own way. My personal biases are toward a whole, organic sound. Detail is ok as long as I can still enjoy the music. My music is mostly pop, some good quality and some not the best. Chvrches, Haim, Spoon, Camera Obscura, She & Him, East Hundred, Tennis, Von Iva, Nikki and the Dove. The Sparkos opamps are probably the next big thing, of course at the time of the Plus the DEXA was the default option for most. My personal bias is toward dacs with no opamps whenever possible. If the Supreme is an actual refinement of the Plus, it could potentially consolidate 3 DACs in my system to save shelf space. I always limit myself to amps that use only current production tubes, so as not to limit myself in the future. If I need a clean detailed sound with no shortcomings, it is the Genalex Gold Lion new production. If I need to darken and thicken the sound, it is the Electro Harmonix new production. I will never be the guy willing to pay for that 1 NOS tube that everyone is after, I see no future in that.

It's called a 9 pin socket saver. Seat it once properly, and when swapping tubes hold down in place with 1 finger while wiggling the tube.

Upsampling pcm to dsd 5.6mhz in Foobar is the best method I have to improve music when necessary. Not interested in downloads at all. I am not sure if the sabre dsd processing is kept dsd, or whether there is pcm conversion involved. The Ee dac plus is ok via usb, just a lot clearer via bnc from an audiophilleo 2 with teddyusb power supply. Usually the audiophilleo is reserved for other uses though. I have a number of systems, whether for the garage, office, living room. Dac wise the ee plus with dexa has been best for gaming, netflix, movies due to the detail in making dialogue sharp and action effects realistic. The treble is too bright on both sabre dacs (peachtree nova 220se in the office), so for music it is either my audionote kit or the teac ud501 to dsd the crappy pcm songs. I use ps audio power regeneration on the main system, I have planars in two systems, several omnis, single drivers, several headphones, several more dacs. I am interested in a supreme, that way I can do dsd with tube output, something that is rare. My dac plus experience has been unreliable though, a failed tube input that required a whole new unit, and then a failed toslink input that I had to order and replace myself. Without toslink it would be useless in a gaming and theater system. If you roll tubes I would use a tube pin socket to take the abuse of plugging tubes until you settle on one for the long term. Those tube pins on the ee are not the easiest to use.