Gordon R

I've been following the debates that both you Ashley and others have contributed. The clincher for myself was the aspect of passive crossovers and their action in the area where the ear is most sensitive to distortion, something thats not been covered to a great extent in the mainstream hifi press. i've shortlisted both the avi's and focal's series 8 for dem but alas won't be able to do this until I come back from the middle east in 6 months. I'm fully prepared to replace my passives + mono blocs if these actives turn out to better. What I would appreciate is feedback from others reference designs from genlec, meridian, focal, atc, etc Is there a dedicated site that provides ratings/measurements for active speakers? I've found a site for active subwoofers: http://www.avtalk.co.uk/forum/index.php?t=thread&frm_id=50 Regards Gordon

Happy newyear everyone. I reckon computer audiophile has saved me in the region of $16000 dollars, which is what I would have spent on cables, cd player and preamp. My only regret is I did not find it sooner. As to the whole debate with regards to hifi or pro audio dacs and which are better. There are price extremes in both segments, but do you really think that something like the m audio fast track dac is sonically equivalent to a Weiss dac2 or Lavry gold? Do you get more for your money vs hifi dacs? yes. Are ordinary hifi dacs suited to computers? Yes so long as they can accept an optical signal and handle different sample rates eg 24 bit/192 khz etc. I bought and use a chord qbd 76. The swingers for me were its ram buffer, multiple inputs and outputs, including clock output. I've tried optical, usb and bluetooth at 16/44 and could not tell the difference with wav or aiff files. 24/96 was clearly superior and thats the rate i've left my mac mini at. I've also used it with a laptop pc running vista. The problem with the pc is that the playback software each sounds very different. j river= accurate but flat. medimonkey = good lilith = best balance but fidly to use. (hope you understand japanese) wmp = easy to use but worst sounding sony sonicstage = not as good as wmp win amp = average I tunes on mini = best and easiest to use. I hope this helps. Regards Gordon

cheers bob, i'm considering a few options. i've looked at a few passives using vishay resistors, and transformer solutions. Trawled audiogon and some members swore by attenuators. What i'm really curious about are pro audio solutions, does anyone have experience with any pro/studio orientated volume controls? gordon r

For my former rear av stands i used sand, i didn't consider the deadening factor - just wanted the stands to be planted. I used to have floor standers and for these i used lead shot. The lead shot was a lot easier to manage and was heavier per unit quantity, i found the sand to just cause a mess and get everywhere. Mind you for these things it really comes down to your own personal preference. Regards Gordon

Hi all i've just ordered a dac for evaluation , my question is i will be running digital sources to the dac including my new mac mini but want to control the volume in the analogue domain without using a preamp( don't have other analogue components). What pro or consumer solutions would you recommend for best sound quality? (The DAC oututs via phono and xlr) My system; Focal utopia micro be speakers, Bel Canto ref 1000 Power amps, macmini, xbox 360, dig sat tv box, chord qbd 76 dac. thanks Gordon

Just discovered a software solution, but have no experence with it. Would appreciate feedback from those who have. http://www.ikmultimedia.com/arc/ regards gordon r

Wifi setup. But I think they are really after tempting mobile phone users. The mobile phone market in the UK is huge. Most of my friends have music, podcasts and funny's stored on their phones. The whole bluetooth design aspect has generated interest enough for the Dac to be profiled in one of the national papers, which is pretty good for a niche audiophile product. Reference quality, they are using a subset of bluetooth- Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP). Now I'm no engineer however what i heard at the show was very high quality indeed. I'd be shocked if that was MP3. Regards Gordon R

Hi David, One product I've used in the past and regretted letting go was the Supra Cables EFF-I. Also there's a mag called Stereoplay here in Germany, they rate the Crystal cable line a lot. Look around for them USED and you could find yourself a bargain. Goodluck Gordon R

I'm not sure about pc's either, throw in the kernel issue with the multitude of playback software available and its fair to say confusion reigns. I'm awaiting Chriss's article vis a vis operating systems, playback software and sound quality with great interest. The results will determine my next computer purchase. Regards Gordon R

Hi Sorry I've taken so long in replyiing but I was waiting for a response from Chord with respect to the bluetooth issues you raised. Here is what they said: " The extraction and conversion process generates either a 44.1 or 48KHz raw data stream which is then upsampled in the DAC circuit. The whole process is very efficient and generates a very high quality result. So your friend is correct that there is a limit on the bandwidth of bluetooth but our system makes full use of what is available and with some clever extraction, conversion and clock circuitry you end up with a very high quality result." All I'll say is thanks Gordon, You were right the bandwidth is limited and i would not have realised this given the info at the show. Gordon R

Well jsut woke up after a hard drive back to Germany. On the whole the show was still very much vinyl/cd focussed. However at least three demonstrators were using computers to play music- one was playing hi res 192khz files. Stand out products: Servers: Bitperfect Systems music/av pc. This is the first audiophile bespoke pc ht/music system I've seen. According to the designer, he's sold 3000 of them to Universal Studios, make of that what you will. Tidily built , quiet with high waf factor. Plays blue ray, games and outputs the high def codecs via hdmi. Cost £1500 ($2746) fully loaded. http://www.hiaudio.co.uk/BPS_prod.htm Dacs: 1. MSB Technologies. Platinum III Dac was on Dem using an I pod and doc modified by themselves. The sound was crystaline clear but did not float my boat. Popped round the rear and unfortunately has no direct usb/firewire connection, Spidif and AES were suported. At approx £5000 I thought it was overpriced. Spoke to the reps, who said it handles hi res and they're developing some sort of add on box with usb. Details are a bit sketchy. There were other dacs on static display from Firestone, small with usb inputs. http://www.abc-audio.co.uk/ 2. Bitperfect systems. DAC2 was on dem playing music from a laptop using cheap £1.99 cable. Very very impressive inded. USB with voume contol for £600 ($1100). Don't know if it outputs hi res, and can't confirm as only litterature i've got from Bitperfect refers to their server. The unit is very new. The dealer said he's only heard a better dac at over £5000 (Wadia). 3. Chord Electroncs. QBD 76 DAC. This was on dem streimng via bluetooth from a pc. Sound was infectiously good. Its got USB inputs and toshlink/ spidif. It can handle hi res files as well. Talked to the Chord rep there. He assured me that the blutooth is not the standard chip you'd get but a proprietary chipset designed by themselves. It can stream 24 bit data up to and including 192khz via this connection. You can even control the volume via the bluetooth pc which was cool. Personally I reckon this is the most revolutionary product i've seen at the show. Priced at £3000 ($5490) http://www.chordelectronics.co.uk/products_detail.asp?id=52 Chordette Gem. This was on static display. A much smaller device, with usb and bluetooth capability. Does 24 bit up to 96 khz. Considering what I heard with its Bigger brother, these could sell like hotcakes. Priced at £400. ($733) http://www.chordelectronics.co.uk/products_detail.asp?id=53 The ARC DAC 7 was on display. Its a lot bigger than I expected but annoyingly I didn't get to hear what it could do. A special mention goes to Audiosmile. They displayed a modified Behringer Dac, which had decent sound with a pair of tiny mini monitors, cyrus electronics and el cheapo wire from maplins. Bravo lads!! http://www.audiosmile.co.uk/ To sum up some dealers/manufacturers are making progress (slowly) to pc audio however I was disappointed with the focus on big cd players big amps, big speakers and big prices too. The hifi world really needs to wake up. There are millions of people who are at this moment downloading and playing music via phone or pc. My friends have done this for years as I have and to us the hi end is increasingly irrelevant. Gordon

i'll be at the London show tomorrow so will make the avi's a priority listen also want to scout some interesting dacs/solutions for my shortlist. Fantastic thread so far. With many a truth said reference scientific theory, audio forum fights, and snake oil to boot.

Heh I thought that demo was good. I'll go out and buy or try those cables. hmm. Isn't the point of ads to put the product out there and generate sales. The buyers got to decide at the end of the day if its any good. For example we've all seen the dodgy soap powder adds, claiming this that or other innovation, what i'm interested in is can they clean my underpants without putting holes in them. Two couldn't and one could. Guess which one i'm using. I reckon this hobby is about finding stuff that fits us. For the record i've used Isolda cables for the last 10 years, they stopped my upgraditis permanently for speaker cable. They don't etch the sound or add bloom. Just right.

Hi avrealty, I picked up 2 VDH octocupler II's last month, one for the sat box and one for my x box360. It made a big improvement. Was watching the olympic rowing, its the first time I heard the splashing of paddles from the event. Try them with consoles, they add a diferrent dimension altogether with nuances and bass response that plastic fibre brands lack. Gordon

My two cents on this, others have listed good pieces, but try these. 1 WAGNAR-The Ring of the Nibelung 2 WIDOR -Tocata from symphony No 5 3 TOLGA KASHIF - The Queen Symphony 4 RODRIGO- Concerto de Aranjuez 5 TCHAIKOVSKY - !812 overture 6 AARON COPLAND - Fanfare for a common man. 7 STRAUSS- Also sprach Zarathustra, op. 30 Heres a good link for you: http://www.classicfm.co.uk/sectional.asp?id=9443 Gordon