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Vincent Borrelli

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  1. Scot, I was also really smitten by the Estelon speakers. The woman you mentioned is designer/owner's daughter, who has been around music and her dad's audio obsession since she was a child, and now helps on the biz side. The speakers are made from a marble dust composite, are very heavy and expensive (the Diamond shown was $67K I think). I thought they were just amazing. As I recall, the source was a wonderful bargain of a turntable by Hanss. The speaker designer from Estonia worked in the field for 37 years before striking out on his own with this speaker line. On a digital audio note, I heard a demo in the AudioQuest room of some USB cables, which included an A/B of the external USB spinning HDD on the platform and on Sorbothane, tiny tube-like shaped, footers. The footers (much to my surprise) made a very noticeable difference especially in the low end frequencies... I was kind of shocked. How can that be? huh? I heard the demo several times and it was for real.
  2. One of the best rooms in the show was right across the hall from Magico: Triode from Japan... simply spectacular, musical, fully engaging. I wanted to feel some [...any] magic from the Magico room, but there was nothing there for me, no soul, even playing vinyl. It was just "OK" and there were so many other really great rooms (especially playing vinyl). The biggest surprise were the amazing Sonas Faber speakers playing in a room on the Mezzanine. I was expecting a syrupy sound, but was blown away. It was one of the best rooms in the show. I wanted to like the MBL and German Physics rooms, but didn't feel it in either room (could have been the rooms I'm sure). Estelan speakers (from Estonia) sounded wonderful! The Focal Utopia/Soulution room was also stunningly great I thought. A few of the YG rooms were interesting, especially the Carmels in the Synergistic Research room which had great soundstaging and imaging. I agree that the variety of electronics showed off a wider range of the YG speakers than I thought possible.
  3. Just received an update about if it's possible to upgrade the Alpha to the new Series 2. Michael from Berkeley said Alpha DACs with serial numbers after #1503 can be upgraded to Series 2.
  4. I'm sure this is just a policy to protect those who made a recent purchase and would have waited for v.2 if they had known it was coming... and to be an incentive to buy new units (vs. "upgrade"). Means good deals soon on used Alpha DACs on A'Gon.
  5. I get it... it's the wrong term. What I meant is, in the process of trying to get better sounding music, I think you can get better at hearing what makes a difference when you make changes. "Skill" implies you need to go off and learn it... When you make a change that knocks you out and you want to stay up all night listening to music, that's worth it all. For me, one of those moments was putting my speakers up on stands with spikes. Another was the DAC, etc. I can't say I have good listening "skills."
  6. On being an audiophile "vs." music lover (as if they are mutually exclusive): http://www.stereophile.com/content/i-am-audiophile#.TjyX8wHkGtk.facebook
  7. This is difficult since much of the impact of a change will depend on: what changes were made before it; where you are in the learning process; your listening skills; etc. I've just been serious for a few years and I know the changes I thought would be insignificant early on turned out to be important. So, personally, looking back, I guess I would rank them roughly: DAC Speakers Software media player Amps Equipment rack (stands under speakers critical) Power cables Power supply Speaker Cables Cables to connect DAC to AMP Room configuration (including speaker positioning) File format PC processing power PC memory Firewire/USB cable for DAC (not sure yet) Mental state It's fun to try and reconstruct what I think were big improvements, at different times (and what else was in the system at the time... and what had NOT been done yet which could have made the change more/less significant). Great question! Vincent
  8. Here is the link for the U.S. online shop: http://firewireshop.stores.yahoo.net/oyneodiefca.html
  9. From what I could tell when I inquired before ordering, the geographic regions for BAD's distributors/dealers is somewhat blurry. I have my order in with a dealer who put me in line, and said he expected them next month. I'm OK with waiting until next year if necessary, but I didn't prepay. You may want to ask for a refund, and place your order with another dealer who would charge you (assuming you used a credit card) upon shipping. I'd rather have it to spec and endure the wait myself.
  10. I had not restarted PM after selecting 'Built-In' output in Audio MIDI... so, still an open question: has anyone been able to enable HOG using a Lynx AES16 card (HOG is dimmed when AES16 is selected in Audio Midi)?
  11. Selecting "Built-in" audio out (in Audio MIDI setup), not the AES16 card, sends 192 out through the Lynx card, and it sounds gorgeous! Sorry about the post.
  12. Has anyone using a Lynx AES16 card been able to select HOG Mode. I have the AES16 card chosen in Audio Midi and HOG is dimmed out. The manual seams to suggest selecting another audio out device (built-in?), but I had HOG mode working with previous PM versions (AES16 selected in MIDI). It's probably an easy fix, but I can't seam to figure it out from the pdf.
  13. select your part of the world, then click on wav at bottom (digital only) to order ($14): http://www.thekingoflimbs.com/ Have been mesmerized by it since yesterday! Great sonics! The video and sound Lotus Flower is also pretty great: http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace/
  14. I would normally agree with you, Bernard, that new is better than used... however, in the case of a good SLC drive, the price of admission for buying new is prohibitively expensive (for me, at least). Just a few years ago, a new 64GB Memoright or Mtron SLC drive would set you back more than $2000. Of course prices have come down (I think a new Intel X25-E 64GB SLC drive now has a street price of about $800), but there is still a huge gap in prices for new SLC vs. new MLC. However, Intel's soon-to-be-released Generation 3 "eMLC" SSDs will narrow the differences in performance and reliability between current enterprise-class SLC drives and consumer-oriented MLC drives. Any drive can fail anytime, and since I don't write much to the system SLC SSD drive, I'm more than happy to take that chance and save the $ (buying another used drive, should one fail, would be only another $50-$100 and easily duplicated from a backup hard disk drive, rather than spending 10x or more for a comparable new SLC SSD). 1,000,000-2,000,000 hours MTBF is a long time. I have 3 Intel X25-M 160GB drives (all purchased used for about $200 per) on other Macs for business and personal use, and they have been 100% reliable for me.
  15. I agree with George about SLC drives being more reliable and using less energy. Since the OS X system (stripped down) + necessary apps (Pure Music and a few others) total under 6GB, I went with a 16GB Mtron SSD which I picked up used on eBay for under $40. Used SSDs are fine I think (unlike hard drives). 16-32GB Mtron drives are listed regularly for around $100 or less.
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