Mechnutt

Both those IC's cost $450. They sounded better than the BJC's but not the Belden 8402. I know of someone that uses the 8402's over$1K cables. It's all about system synergy and personal tastes. Cables are a crap shoot. Just look at used cables. I see so many cables that are over $1K being sold with only a few hours on them.

I agree, the Luxman DA-06 is a bit long in the tooth. I still love its warmer, non fatiguing sound. It sounds great with Hi-Rez from 384 down, DSD is decent which is no big deal. Last year a friend brought over a Yggdrasil and we compared. The Yggy sounded a bit better but I felt the tone on the Luxman was richer. I prefer a DAC with a very slightly warmer tone and some low end bloom. I am looking at an Aqua La Voce S3. I use to own a Cary Audio 200ts, returned it after 10 days. I also owned a Marantz NA11s1 which had the best tone and texture of any DAC that I have owned, piano and female vocals were the best that I have heard from a DAC. However, it was way to forward and fast paced in my system. The rest of my gear is fairly resolving. BAT VK51-se preamp, Pass Labs X250 amp, Luxman DAC, Magnepan 1.6 speakers with dual subs. I am using a custom music computer that I build in a mid tower quiet case with a low ripple power supply, quiet fans, shielded cables etc.. I remote in from a laptop using windows remote desktop. It sounds great. Music players are Bug Head and Audirvana.

I replaced my Cardas Parsec and AQ Columbia 72v XLRs ( both cost over $300) with $65 pr Belden 8402 XLR's and have not looked back. They have a blacker background for some unknown reason and are more musical and smoother without losing detail or transparency. More expense with cables is not always better. But again, it all boils down to system synergy and personal preference.

I agree. Our usb shootout was eye opening to say the least. What was especially shocking was the fact that the $600 Lightspeed cable sounded like crap in my system but sounds fantastic with my friends DAC which sounds very good with the WW Platinum but better with the LS. I do believe people that can't hear a difference in their system between usb cables is due to a number of factors. Their DAC may not be sensitive to cable changes, if the changes are more subtle as they can be, their DAC or system is not resolving enough to hear it, the usb cables they are comparing are very similar in sound or they just have poor hearing which I think it least likely. My Luxman DAC is clearly very sensitive to cable changes and even a non audio person could easily hear the difference. We had a variety of cables from the under $100 Pangea, the $150 WW Red to the 2x $600 cables. And it was not just the Luxman that we heard changes in cables. My son and I easily heard changes in cables with his new Qutest DAC and the Cary DAC.

Hi, I am little late to this topic but I would like to post my findings of a USB cable shootout we did in my system about 2 years ago. I have a Luxman DA-06 DAC, BAT VK-51se preamp, Pass Labs X250 amp and Magnepan 1.6 speakers with dual subs. Music player was Bug Head Infinity Blade. There were 5 of us and the cables used were a $600 Lightspeed, $600 WireWorld Starlight Platinum, WW Starlight Red and a cheap Pangea silver cable. We tested the cables without and them with a Regen. We had no expectations that there would be significant differences. However, we were wrong. Surprisingly there were huge differences. The Platinum sounded the best. It was musical, detailed and smooth at the same time. The soundstage was wide and deep. No harshness or glare. It did not sound rolled off. The Lightspeed had extreme detail but was extremely, ear piercing bright to the point it was not listenable. The WW Red sounded veiled and muffled. The Pangea sounded very thin, tinny and bright. When we introduced the Regen, It basically had minimal if any effect on the WW Platinum. It toned down the brightness of the Lightspeed but it was still not listenable. It removed the veil of the WW Red and made it sound close to the Platinum. It toned down some of the brightness of the Pangea but it was still tinny, bright and very thin sounding. Now interestingly, the guy who owns both the Platinum and Lightspeed has a T+A DAC8 and prefers the Lightspeed over the Platinum in his system. I have heard his system with the LS cable and it does not sound bright. Just this past week, my son bought a Chord Qutest DAC to use instead of the good DAC in Cary SI-300.2d integrated amp. The Qutest is not fully broken in yet and it has improved after about 25 hours. We tried 3 different cables- an Audioquest Carbon, WW Starlight Red and an Oyaide Neo Class A. The music player was Audirvana. With the Cary DAC the AQ sounded the best, very musical, smooth with very good detail, non fatiguing top end and a wide and deep sound stage. The WW Red was a little muted in comparison. We did not try the Oyaide with the Cary's built in DAC. However, things changed with the Qutest DAC. The Oyaide sounded the best. It was very musical with good detail. It was neutral (but the brightest out of all the cables) punchy and had a huge sound stage. And it was non fatiguing. The AQ Carbon sounded flat and warmer in comparison. The WW Red was even flatter sounding. We then introduced that Regen which gave the Oyaide a hint of very pleasing warmth. It slightly improved the musicality of the AQ carbon. We then used and AQ Jitterbug with the Regen and it made the Oyaide a little bright. It improved the AQ Carbon and it sounded a little less flat and added a little more musicality. We did not try the WW Red with the Regen or Jitterbug but plan on doing so next week. Just a side note. We swapped in a Teradak LPS for the Qutest and Regen and it improved the sound adding a little more clarity. My conclusions are that USB cables are DAC specific just as RCA, XLR and speaker cables can be system dependent. Larry

I would look at the Aqua La Scala MKII DAC. It is very analog sounding as are all the Aqua DAC's.

Nope, just download a protractor from vinylengine.com and buy a decent electronic stylus force gauge for $15 to $50 https://www.vinylengine.com/cartridge-alignment-protractors.shtml http://www.ebay.com/bhp/stylus-pressure-gauge This AVAHiFi turntable alignment system is very good- http://www.avahifi.com/products/for-vinyl-lovers/turntable-alignment-system

I would put my 1970's Thorens TD-145 up against any modern TT under $1K any day. They only mods to it are that I built a plinth out of Cocobolo which is a very heavy and dense wood. I lined the inside with GT Mat sound and vibration insulation, made a bottom cover out of Baltic Birch and it sits on sorbothane feet. Plus it is semi-automatic. It really pisses me off that the only current semi-auto TT's are junk. TT's were really reaching their peak in design and engineering in the late 70's and early 80's until CD took over. As for dynamic range and bass with a TT, it all depends upon your cartridge and phono preamp that you pair it with, along with having the proper cartridge compliance, alignment. A cartridge protractor and scale are a must. ( I realize that you can't expand the Dynamic Range of a TT but the rest of your gear and the quality of the recording can make up for it in some respects) I have quite a bit of the same music on vinyl and digital and most of the time vinyl sounds better. Vinyl rarely sounds compressed in my system as my gear (Pass X250 amp, BAT VK-51se preamp and Magnepan speakers with dual subs) has a very wide and deep soundstage. Bass is never lacking and sounds more natural on vinyl.

I set my son up with a vintage 1970's Pioneer PL-55x TT that I bought refurbished in mint condition for $150. Bought an Emotiva XPS phono preamp and tried a 2M Red with it and then went with a Nagaoka MP-150 which transformed the sound into something special. It is an awesome sounding analog rig paired with a Parasound A21 amp and DIY Pass Labs B1 buffer/preamp. My point is, don't be afraid to go with a vintage TT if it is in great condition and pair what ever TT you get with a good cartridge and phono preamp. Also, I have some music that was converted from vinyl to digital. The music sounds awesome. A program was used to take out any hiss and pops. We compared the converted music to cd and digital downloads and we all preferred the vinyl converted to digital in my system

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am very interested in the Voltage regulator. It certainly is worth a try and I can't see a down side to regulating voltage. Any have anything good to report about Fidelizer Pro? I have read mixed reviews about SATA filters. Some say it has improved the sound, others say it sucked the life out of the music. It clearly appears to be system dependent. Rando, lol about Bug Head. I have the Bug Head settings down and really don't futz with them any more except when I listen to older bright sounding music. The natural sound setting in the newer BH versions really smooths them out. Bug Head is such a good sounding program but you really have to try different versions to see what works best with your system. The latest versions require a Kaby Lake I7 and DDR 4 ram. Its one of the reasons I built the desk top as my laptop I7 6700HQ with 16gb ram does not have the horse power to run the latest versions. I am eventually going to try Roon with HQ player although I have tried HQP before and BH always sounds better. However, I can now max out the settings on HQP.

Those Teac's look great in person but user reviews are not good. I would rather have a Pro-ject Debut Carbon DC or a maxed out Orbit U-turn. Then buy a phono preamp that has an analog to usb converter. Pro-ject, NAD and Rega make them to name a few. Also put a good cartridge on it like an Ortofon 2M Blue or if you prefer a warmer sound- Grado Prestige Gold, Nagaoka MP-110 (a great buy and performs way above its price point) or the better MP-150. I own both the Nagaoka MP-200 and MP-150. They are very forgiving of poorly recorded music as they temper surface noise and have a warmer liquid sound. I am not a fan of the 2M Red. Too bright and grainy but it is musical. The 2M Blue is smoother

Why move the music library externally? I had the WD Red in an external case connected via usb 3 to my laptop. I thought that moving it internally, it would sound better by eliminating a usb cable and having a shorter signal path with a short SATA cable. However, I could easily try it as an external HD. I would love to move it to a NAS and connect via ethernet but my router is 1 floor down.

Hi, I recently completed a desk top computer build for dedicated audio to replace my audio laptop (cpu I7 7700K, Crucial Ballistix Elite DDR4 3000mz, Gigabyte Z270 D3H MOBO, Samsung 850evo SSD for OS and music players, Corsair RM550x low ripple power supply and a WD Red 5 TB HD for music storage all in a Fractal Design R5 sound insulated case with Nuctua low noise fans, OS Win 10 Pro). I am running headless and remote in with Win Remote desktop which works flawlessly. I run Bug Head Emperor music player various versions. I was stunned at the improvement in sound, Blacker and cleaner background, more detail and space. Currently, I am looking for suggestions on any tweaks to improve the sound further if possible- hardware and software. Thoughts on Fidelizer Pro, Processor Lasso etc. I have tried the free version of Fidelizer with my high end laptop and was not impressed. Much thanks! Larry

Thanks for all the tips. I am interested in hearing how the SATA filter works.

Not sure what I did wrong in replying, oops!