dointhefish

Anthony at SE has been of great help to me. He hooked me up w/ my Wavelength gear. I bought an excellent small system there for my older nephew and it looks like I'll be getting another for the younger one. A great space. Can't wait to meet and hear Chris.

My Isabellina sounds delicious w/ my Mac Pro in my bedroom system! Get the upgrade option if you plan on using sampling rates above 44.1. Cost is around $2000 w/ the upgrade. USB interface sounds great!

Not only do I remember VMS, I developed apps in it for a number of years. And just so you young punks have a little perspective, there wouldn't be a Windows NT OR Windows 7 without the technology developed in VMS. Only wrote one program using cards but wrote a few in LSI-11 assembler. Now I'm building MVC websites using ASP.NET. Since music file servers and players became the rage I haven't listened to a whole CD in years! With the exceptions of Dark Side Of The Moon, The Wall and A Love Supreme, there really is no compelling reason to do so anymore. My remote is an RF type, not an IR. Hence, no pointing required. My point: respect the old, embrace the new but always find the fun. And w/ that in mind, if you find yourself saying to your co-workers "Kanye who?" then....

Hey Rick, I did a little research on your AV controller and it looks like that USB interface is intended for memory based devices, i.e. USB based music players and portable memory. I'm highly doubtful that this could be your direct USB to DAC interface. http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/item/new/538999471/yamaha-rx-v3800 But check it out further and let us know what you find. Andrew

Pure Music has an import feature that allows you to include an anchor file in iTunes that references the FLAC file. When iTunes tries to process it with PM active, PM recognizes the reference and plays the FLAC file. I don't use this feature myself however since it seems a bit flakey from an implementation standpoint (I'm a software developer so I tend to judge these things) so I stick to AIFF files. These are the Apple equivalents to WAV files and as a result, take up the most disk space but also have the most direct path "from file to sound." As for using WAV files in PM, I haven't explored that path. And purchased files are no problem even though they are lossy. OMT about going the USB route to your DAC. USB implementations have changed A LOT over the past few years due to its relatively recent inclusion in the audiophile market. SP/DIF interfaces have been around for sometime and are well understood by more manufacturers. So depending on the vintage of the DAC in your Yamaha, USB-to-SP/DIF may still be your ticket. My Audio Research DAC-7 has a USB interface that I consider to be only adequate so I'm not using it. I go USB-SP/DIF to BNC instead and the results are stunning. Best of luck, Andrew

I use one of those for when I want to stream my iPhone to the stereo or when guests want to stream from their MacBooks. I don't consider it an audiophile interface. And if you're still hoping to use Amarra with it, you'll need to run the Airfoil software as well since Amarra doesn't have native AirTunes support (yet I think). I'm a believer in the USB-SP/DIF conversion and there are lots of good products to do that at various price points. I use the Wavelength WaveLink which is pretty top of the line but the Musical Fidelity product should do you just fine. Also consider Pure Music as a software alternative to Amarra. Some prefer the sound of Amarra but I find PM does a terrific job of livening up the musical presentation over iTunes at a competitive price. Don't skimp on the USB or SP/DIF cable but no need to go overboard on them either. Mid-range Audioquest or Kimber cables are pretty good and do make a diff. You're on your way to some great sounds. Enjoy the journey.

The DT880s are rated at 250 ohms so your PC may not be able to drive them alone. Consider getting a amp to go with them. The Dennon AH-D2000 are 32 ohms, have a great low end response and will sound good w/ just you PC's audio out. Checkout www.headphone.com for what is possibly the best online selection. You can try all their stuff for 30 days and return w/o risk. Good luck. Andrew

Every year around this time I tune in the Dysfunctional Holiday station on Slacker Radio. Given my distaste for xmas music in general, it's great to hear James Brown, Reverend Horton Heat, etc. giving the season the alternative spin it so badly needs. http://www.slacker.com/

Can anyone recommend a quality headphone amp w/o a DAC (sorry Benchmark, Lavry, Grace) that has, at a minimum, a remote volume control? These seem to be a rare commodity. The aforementioned companies do cater to this but I already have a DAC I love (AR DAC7) and don't need another. Not even Headroom caters to this need. Anyone have a clue as to why? My cans of choice are low impedance Audio Technica W1000s and high impedance Sennheiser HD650s but it's really the W1000s that get priority. BTW, I am aware of Head-fi.com but I find the feedback here to be more to my liking. Thx, Andrew

..always had an attractive woman (or 2) on their covers. However, I only purchased the ones that I could hear and evaluate for content. Sure, they got my attention (especially Country Life) but my dollars were driven by audio content only.

I ordered a Red Wine Audio Isabellina last week. There is a 30 day return policy. There is no way I'd spend that much money without a generous return policy. Previous record was $2k with a Headroom balanced headphone amp w/ Dennon DS7000 cans which I love. Again, a great return policy wins the day.

Yes that is a blanket statement and I'm not proud to say it but, due to some "baggage" from my youth, classical music is just unlistenable to me unless there's some seriously modern twists on it like Philip Glass or Kronos Quartet. However, because of the satirical content, I do enjoy PDQ Bach. Look up "New Horizons In Music Appreciation" if you're not already familiar. Andrew

I have one remaining issue with it. I'm running version 15 under Windows 7 using WASAPI - Event Style and whenever I transition from an AIF file (which is most of them) to an M4A file (purchased from iTunes) there is a one second or less burst of static noise before the file starts playing. Transitions between all other file types I've tried work fine. Is anyone else having this issue? Would an upgrade to 16 help at all? Or should I bite the bullet and convert the M4A files to AIF? Thanks Andrew

As hard as I have tried nothing buy Springsteen nor the Buckingham/Nicks edition of Fleetwood Mac (the "popular" one) has ever made the slightest impression on me. I think w/ Bruce his reliance on sentiment as a musical foundation is what repels me as I prefer edgier artists in the singer/songwriter genre (Cohen, Dylan, etc.) Even as a rocker, that whole Jersey shore sound was a tepid R&B/R&R hybrid at best. I'm sure the guy has some kind of talent. It's just lost on me. As for the Mac, there is really nothing outstanding about their sound. They're really quite average. Their popularity in the 70s confused me no end. Then Tusk came out and BOMBED! The last laugh was mine. Anyway, I'm sure they care a lot about what I think...NOT! BTW, wgscott, is that Jesus w/ a sock puppet?

Got my Wavelink today. It sits between my Windows7 server running J. River and my Audio Research DAC7 with some Audioquest Cinnamon USB cable and AQ VDM-3 S/PDIF BNC-to-BNC. It replaces my Halide Bridge which I thought was awesome until I heard this. The Bridge renders lots of nice detail through the mids and highs but doesn't quite get the low end to my liking. Not so the Wavelink. It's a full spectrum experience. Lots of detail and impact all over. Shows just how great a piece of gear my AR DAC7 is. Voices have an in-the-room quality they didn't have before. Drum beats have more impact and cymbals crash beautifully. ECM recordings sound their absolute best with instrument separation more distinct than ever. Horns and saxes have more shimmer. Weather Report's Heavy Weather album sounds more 3 dimensional than I remember hearing before. I started this journey of jitter reduction with the HiFace which sounded good but then upgraded to the EVO which sounded better. Then came the Halide Bridge which raised the bar even further. I thought about getting the Alpha USB when it becomes available but the Wavelength appears to have a portability advantage so I'll be taking this to work to see how it plays w/ my Lavry DA11. Give its price to performance I think I've probably hit my limit ($900!) but the performance is right where I want it so I think I can relax with this for a while. Andrew Windows7->AQ Cinnamon USB->WaveLink->AQ VDM-3->AR DAC7->AQ Colorado XLR->Krell KAV-400i->Elac FS 607 X-JET