westelk

SOLD!

Sorry, it is sold.

I bought this from SOtM at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest with plans to build a dedicated music PC, but ended up getting an Aurender instead. I opened the box and plugged it in to see if it worked, but it is otherwise unused. This comes with a 9v power supply. The new version is $1700, this one can be upgraded to the new version for $80 plus shipping. It's yours, shipped in the lower 48 for $900.

Several people have mentioned using the ISO Regen with the Holo dac, how about the Sotm tx-USBultra? My current source is an Aurender N100 feeding the Holo USB input. I also have a Singxer SU-1 available but not currently using it. Has anyone compared the ISO Regen against the SOtM?

Miska, What mode do you suggest for pcm up to 192k?

About a week ago, I had 3 dacs on demo, Chord 2Qute, Chord Hugo TT and Ayre Codex. Below are my impressions of each. First, at a current price of $1500, the 2Qute is the bargain of the bunch; it runs cool, has USB, coax and optical inputs and presents a detailed but non irritating sound. You can listen for extended periods without fatigue. It offers a large soundstage with good separation of instruments and a sense of the venue. My only real gripe about it are the annoying lights, but they could be covered with tape or something. I am setting up a mixed Home theater/2 channel stereo setup and the 2Qute would cast it's lights on the screen if left on the top of the component table. The Codex sounds extremely similar, if not exactly like the 2Qute. I was hard pressed to detect any difference. I tried the Codex with XLR and RCA interconnects (Cardas Clear Light for both) but they sounded the same to me. The main gripe about the Codex is that it runs VERY hot. The Codex was new and not broken in but the 2Qute was a floor demo unit with some run time on it. It would likely take a more extended listen of one then switching to the other to see if the previous was missed or not. A tie here. Last was the Hugo TT; at well over $4000, this seems to be an immature product. For this price you would expect perfection in every way from a component of this type. First, it has a line-out mode where it is intended to be used with an external preamp instead of using the built in volume control. This is a joke, all this mode does is set the volume to max, on ALL outputs including the headphone out. The internal volume control is still active in line-out mode! To me this is a major fail. I'm sure you can imagine the kinds of problems this potentially presents. The second issue was that the remote volume control for my amp would change the input on the Hugo TT every time the amps volume was adjusted, very aggravating. Finally, the remote for the Hugo TT is one of the worst I've ever seen. All the buttons are small, recessed, close together and not really intuitively laid out. Reading glasses were needed to use the remote. The construction quality was ok, just poorly designed, poorly implemented. How about the sound? The Hugo TT had a similar sound to the others but did a better job fleshing out the location of instruments in the soundstage and female voices sounded better than the other 2. Voices sounded like they were more precisely located and were....hmm, I'm struggling to find the right description here, I'll use "tighter". The sound of Diana Krall just appeared to be focused and "right there" with the Hugo TT while with the other two, less so. Also noticed was slightly tighter bass with the HugoTT. All 3 presented music against a black, noise free background but sonically, the Hugo TT was the winner. Please keep in mind that these differences are not huge. I came into the test with a bias toward the HugoTT and wanted to buy it, but in the end I decided that the HugoTT was not worth nearly 3 times the cost of the 2 Qute, especially with the issues mentioned. Chord needs to go back to the drawing board on the HugoTT, but leave the sound alone. I did try comparing the volume control of the HugoTT vs the one in my Integrated amp. I couldn't detect any difference but perhaps with more extended listening some difference could be found. As for the headphone output on the HugoTT, only inexpensive in-ears (~$100) were tried and it was awful, un-listenable. But, this may be more of a problem with the in-ears than the HugoTT. I'm not a headphone guy. equipment was as follows: Source-Aurender N100 and custom built music PC (Aurender is better, but more mods can be made to PC) USB Cable- Belkin Gold into Uptone Regen into short usb that came with Regen Interconnects- Cardas Clear Light (rca and xlr) Amp - Octave Audio V-110SE (Integrated) with Super Black box (amazingly good!) Speaker cables- Shunyata zitron Cobra (good stuff, might buy these) Speakers- KEF LS50 (nothing better anywhere near the price) The speakers that will eventually go with this setup is Vienna Acoustics Beethoven Concert Grands, but I was unable to get them setup for this dac test. I did not yet purchase a DAC. I still want to hear the Mytek Brooklyn because I'm interested in trying MQA after hearing demos of it at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest this year. I'm also interested in the Schiit products and others. If there is anyone in the Denver area that would be willing to let me hear some other dacs I would greatly appreciate it. PM me. I hope this helps someone. best regards ps, my room is highly flawed. I do have some acoustic treatments and will add more, but the room was affecting the sound and my impressions may change in the future after more treatment and eq are applied.

Corrado, Everything you load onto the N100 hard drive will show up in the library. It will allow you to view it by artist, album, genre etc. There is also a DSD button that lets you show only the DSD music in your library. Also, it will display buttons for the first several folders (alphabetically) in your library. So what I do is make the first folders 16bit, 1Hi Rez, 1Mp3, 1Compilation or something to that effect. There is also a button to let you view your library by folder. The N100 is very versatile, easy and intuitive to use and sounds GREAT!

Maybe I don't understand the operation of the 250w DC-ATX, but I thought that the 250w rating was for it's max output. I assumed that any power supply would operate the 250w DC-ATX as long as the current demand was below the capacity of the power supply (100w with air) , not the output of Dc-Atx. Don't a lot of people run the 160 and 250 DC-ATX with 100w LPS's? I posted the 15v version because it offers a little more output than dialing down the 24v version. Either are within the voltage requirement of the DC-ATX. Of course even if this power supply will run the DC-ATX there is still the question of whether or not it will put out clean, quiet power appropriate for a music server. I don't know if any reasonable conclusions can be made about this question from the specs, I'm hoping that a resident EE can chime in about this.

I saw this on DigiKey and was wondering if it would work well to power a HDplex Hifi 250W DC-ATX. ZMS100 Series - TDK-Lambda | Digi-Key It comes in various voltages and has a small range of output adjust-ability. Here is the spec sheet: http://www.us.tdk-lambda.com/ftp/Specs/zms100.pdf I know nothing about power supplies and their suitability for powering a music server so any input on this would be appreciated.

To me, sound comes first, features second and in my opinion, the best true desktop speakers on the planet are the Harbeth P3ESR. If you could make a speaker sound like those for under $1000, the world will beat a path to your door, and I'll be first in line.

I have not heard the Shiit but I recently heard the Grace M920 in comparison to a Parasound DAC (don't know the model, but it might have been the Zdac). The M920 totally blew it away, no comparison. Very organic, very detailed, great soundstaging and imaging etc etc. A very good choice. I didn't buy it due to already having XLR cables for the line out and didn't want to switch to the 1/4" balanced cables. I'm still looking for a good DAC for under $2000.