K Shep

It's Schiit not Shiit ; ^)

I purchased the Schiit MODI Dac for giggles, the unit is $100 powered over USB. I am very surprised at the quality sound from this little piece. Here is a photo of the back of the unit. No power cord.

of great information regarding ABX. http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/04/dishonesty-of-sighted-audio-product.html

Great to meet you Thursday Chris. We're fortunate to have Music Lover's in the Bay Area. The S.F. store is my go to audio shop.

This is a great site to share and learn, IMO.

like your best bet is a Dell. Feeling comfortable and confident with a purchase is most of the battle, oh sound quality matters too.

A Mac Mini is plug and play with a USB capable DAC (just like your speakers). No sound card needed. The power supply is separate which cuts down on noise. The Mini is compact and won't take up much space. You don't need a monitor to use a Mac Mini (headless) utilizing a iPod Touch or iPhone as a remote. I agree that the extended warranty is interesting, perhaps it should last for one year. The Mini comes with a 90 day warranty that includes customer care but, if you decide to purchase the extended 3 year warranty for $149 your customer care also continues for the 3 year period, that addresses your mac tech issue. The convenience of an iTouch to manipulate iTunes is what is the clincher for me. I simply sit in my listening chair with my iTouch in one hand and browse my music library.

you should.

for the comprehensive review.

Pure and simple! Congratulations.

the opportunity to compare the Cosecant to the Crimson?

You'll have to change your avatar.

difference in vocals while comparing preamps, tube amp to SS amp and speakers, but how a DAC affects vocals? Great question, I have only been able to compare my QB-9 to the Wolfson 8741 DAC in my Arcam CD player, I actually went and had a listen to answer your question. IMO the QB-9 is less analytical than the Wolfson, the QB-9 is smoother. In general I couldn't be happier! If I wasn't satisfied I would own a different DAC.

The USB functionality of the Ayre is the reason I chose the QB9, plug-n-play. I have heard the HQBD76 in an all Chord setup, tough to compare to my system, but I enjoyed what I heard. I am biased, but my vote is Ayre.

Thanks Elf I was hoping you would chime in. The DAC specs: DAC circuit 24 bit Delta-Sigma (bit stream) dual differential 8x over-sampling Total correlated jitter