KEH

I really like Tidal for discovering new music. But the streaming through any app has been hopeless for a week here in DC. Not much point in discovering music if you can't play it. I guess I will try to figure out how to send them feedback. Kirk

+1 for Screens. Very capable, very reliable. Kirk

Check out the HiFiMan mid-priced offerings. I am delighted with the $700 HE-500s driven by a Schiit Lyr. Kirk

You could try demo's of the IK Multimedia options. I tried their vintage tube equalizer: http://www.ikmultimedia.com/trsingles/moreinfo/moreinfo3.php By looking at their presets you can get a sense of how to tune the sound to your taste. Kirk

I would be very interested to hear about the Psvane tubes. On my Miniwatt I upgraded the Sovtek EL84 to EL84M (military version) after reading what the vendors were saying (eg Tube Depot). I haven't looked back - these tubes are musical and basically get out of the way. You get big sound differences when swapping the 12AX7, which allows for system tuning as you change equipment upstream and downstream. The stock Tungsol re-issue is very good, and I liked it with my tube DAC. But I am now experimenting with a solid state DAC and find the Tungsol too bright on top - a vintage Tungsram sounded very sweet, but went too far the other way. I have currently settled on a platinum grade Mullard re-issue, cryo-treated by Kevin Deal at Upscale Audio. This is just right - tight and tuneful bass, open highs without sibilance issues. Kirk

I've used them for maybe 10 years. Absolutely first rate in my experience. I've only had to return something once, but it was quick and straightforward. For newly released items in short supply you might want to call just to be sure that the item is in stock. Kirk

For 'sort of' portable use, the Nuforce iDo is pretty good. Mine's still breaking in, but the sound is excellent so far - nice bass in particular. Uses a wall wart, but in compensation it charges your iDevice while playing music. Includes a headphone amp, so that is one box fewer... It also has RCA line out as well as RCA SPDIF out. Kirk

Another option for music from the iPad is the HRT iStreamer. It is limited to 16/48, but then so is most of my music collection. It runs in 'host mode' (which I assume is asynch). The connector to the iPad both charges the iPad and sends the digital stream to the DAC. Running the iStreamer to a Bellari tube headphone amp and then to my Grados produces very fine sound indeed, and I think this might owe something to the quality of the iPad as a 'transport.' Just my 2c. Kirk

Let me add my kudos to Channel D. A big step up. I have settled on upsampling to 88.2 as my setup (the vast majority of my music is ripped CD). I experimented with integer mode and found it just a bit too harsh, which probably is linked to my Havana NOS dac - other dacs presumably would upsample internally. Anyway, really enjoying the sound. Kirk

I used a 151 PowerDAC for a few months and quite liked it. In the end I decided that I wanted to go back to something with tubes involved... The USB input with a good cable (I liked the Kimber) sounds quite good. But if you use an asynch input such as the Musical Fidelity VLink, then the bass and the treble really sing. The bass in particular is beautifully tight and tuneful. If I have a criticism it is in the mid-tones. So if you listen to a lot of female vocalists you might want to try a PowerDAC before buying it. Kirk

Hi Damien, I managed to get a kernel panic (I think) with the latest version by leaving it running all night on my Mac Mini (which only has 2gb of ram). I run integer mode with Apple CoreAudio and limit upsampling to 2x or 4x. I say 'I think' because OS X crashed while the monitor was in sleep mode, and there was no way to get video back. Anyway, the symptom was an increasing buzzing sound, followed by silence, followed by a dead Mac Mini. In the previous version I managed to get a kernel panic in my Mac Pro with 6gb, but I was running Photoshop and Lightroom, so who knows what sort of physical memory was available. Other than this, great software. Kirk

Favorite rig: iPad -> HRT iStreamer -> Bellini HA540 amp -> Grado RS2i So far this sounds better than: MacMini -> MF Vlink -> MHRT Havana -> Music Hall a25.2 amp -> Grado RS2i ...but the Havana DAC is still breaking in, and I will upgrade the tube in it as well. Kirk

Got mine today. Very fine sound so far. I am running MacMini -> Vlink -> Stereovox HDXV cable -> Wadia 151PowerDac Compared with straight USB into the PowerDac, bass is tighter and deeper / more substantial, transients really sing, top end has more air and detail. A keeper! Kirk

Hi -I had the same problem. The only Mac program that I could find to do this in batch mode while preserving metadata is something called TwistedWave. Works like a charm, but I would be interested to know if other people have found solutions. Kirk

First post, so pardon any newbie-ness. Got Pure Music 1.45 up and running on my Mac Mini which serves as my music server. I have a PSAudio DAC III modded by Rick Cullen and absolutely love it. For the moment I am using Toslink to the dac because I am waiting for a problem-free (and affordable) way to go USB asynch from the Mac to the dac. Anyway, with memory mode in Pure Music and upsampling the standard out to 96k I am getting truly beautiful results - more dynamic, better transients, more air on top. A couple of questions: - I presume that the better sound means that the software upsampling in Pure Music is better than the hardware upsampling in the DAC III? - I can't get it to run in 'Hog' mode, and I presume that is because I am using the standard out. - I am guessing that Pure Music defaults to 24-bit bit depth, since there is no way to set this separately from the sampling rate. Reasonable presumptions on my part? As others in this thread have noted, it isn't entirely clear why Pure Music should sound so much better than straight Itunes. Cheers, Kirk