spudgered

Hi Chris, thanks for the informative review and great photo's of the units internal parts. Chris did you listen to the HS-DA1 headphone amplifier? As I'm interested in purchasing a small footprint DAC/AMP combo and this kit sounds (no pun intended) ideal. Does the headphone amp section stack up well against comparable units? Your comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Regarding USB isolators, Firestone Audio make this neat little gadget - http://www.firestone-audio.eu/shop/products/allproductslisted/greenkey.php - but it is prohibitively expensive. Any thoughts about achieving the same thing for less greenbacks?

What a great opportunity to meet an eclectic selection of industry experts. You guys over the pond are so fortunate to have such a proactive audio community.

If everything goes according to plan Louis Motek from LessLoss will be lending us a Laminar Streamer to audition at the meet, which is likely to be the UK début for this item. So UK Computer Audiophiles please get in touch if you'd like to attend this event. Cheers, Andy.

If any UK audiophiles would like to audition a e18 DAC, there will be one present at the UK Head-Fi & Computer Audio meet this September in Cambridge. Please click on this link for further details - http://www.head-fi.org/t/601003/uk-2012-head-fi-meet-september-15th-cambridgeshire Cheers, Andy.

More exciting news regarding equipment to audition at the forthcoming meet... 32bit/384kHz bit-perfect master files playback anyone? I will have an exaSound e18 DAC at the meet and am keen to listen to 384kHz high resolution music files - if I can find a website to download them from in the E.U. Cheers, Andy.

The UK Head-Fi meet is shaping up nicely with some great gear available to audition, so please do check out the message thread mentioned earlier and attend if you can. Cheers, Andy.

Thanks very much for your support Chris. I will email dCS and ask them if they'd like to exhibit their gear - though we may be a bit too lo-fi for them. ;-) Cheers, Andy.

Fellow audio enthusiasts Chris has graciously allowed me to post details of the forthcoming 2012 UK head-fi & computer audio meet in September here. Last years meet in London was such a fantastic event and as loads of people have expressed an interest in attending one this year, I've decided to organise a meet this September. A village hall close to Cambridge with good access to the M11 and A1(M) via the A14 has been provisionally booked for Saturday 15th September. There is ample onsite parking, tables/chairs, a kitchen, spacious hall and accessible toilets. This will now be a free event as costs have been generously covered by distributor/retailers who have paid to exhibit their equipment. Please PM me your expressions of interest on head-fi and what equipment you'll be bringing along. I will regularly update this thread - http://www.head-fi.org/t/601003/uk-2012-head-fi-meet-september-15th-cambridgeshire - with further information. Cheers, Andy. P.S. I'll be bringing my Kao Audio UD2C-HP and Eximus DP-1 along and there'll be a wide variety of gear to audition.

I haven't found a more aesthetically pleasing way of using CD's than that employed by Seane Avery...

The Kao Audio UD2C-HP has been receiving great reviews on head-fi. Apparently a bunch of ex Asus engineers founded Kao Audio specifically to make affordable audiophile audio. The UD2C-HP has a small footprint, short signal paths and is being sold on eBay for under $1,000 by the company. Cheers.

tk11 Regarding your choice of loudspeakers, I've a pair of these pebble speakers on order and have read good things about them - http://www.sereneaudio.com/pebblepassive - they're available in passive and active variants.

Hi Kay, I had reservations about purchasing from a dealer outside of my country (UK) and did consider importing a Wavelength Proton direct from Gordon Rankin, but decided that the importation taxes would be punitive and instead purchased from SoundClub in Poland. The SoundClub guy I contacted - Maciej Chodrowski - was extremely helpful and purchasing a Proton was straightforward with swift delivery. If you have any concerns why not put them directly to Maciej - [email protected] The Proton is an outstanding piece of kit and I thoroughly recommend it. Andrew.

prosoft, I have my LCD-2 re-cabled with ALO audio RW8-S Silver/Copper headphone cable and it has improved the transparency and dynamics. However, it is quite a cumbersome cable and relatively expensive. A friend has his LCD-2 re-cabled with Moon Audio Silver Dragon and they sound nearly as good as mine, but there is a smidgeon of treble harshness listening to cymbals and brass instruments. I mentioned this and he assured me that this cables takes 100 hours plus to `burn-in' and his only had 30 hours play time on it. The Silver Dragon cable is far more flexible and easy to manage and a bit cheaper too. Hope that this helps, Cheers.

realhifi I'm intrigued that you like the B&W P5's so much, as I find they sound somewhat muffled and not very dynamic. Do your P's have many hours usage? Mine are quite new and perhaps they will improve after 50 hours or so. I really want to like the P5's as they're very well built and stylish.