staxguy

?, i have a question. How is it that the ifi black label is superior to the micro dsd with the improved components, if the specifications are the same? does Audio not have the right specifications suite, or is ifi unable to properly measure in their own fascility? i have the ifi nano dsd, and I absolutely hate the sound. I expected it to make the sound better, as a great decent DAC, like going from the Sennheiser HD 650 Ovation II to the Stax 007 Omega II. Or like going from the Rotel 980BX to YBA1 amplification in solid state amplification. going from the audio engine D1, it made the sound much more terrible. likewise, the audio engine D1 DAC made the sound much worse, though with less noise, than the on board intel audio chipset. i had really hoped an external battery power supply, like that in the ifi nano idsd would of improved the sound through reduced noise further like a reference Jeff Rowland monoblock power amplifier. is the ifi idsd micro black label any better than the to me terrible and I mean unbelievably so ifi nano idsd DAC or are all these external dacs just terrible piles of shit, and wasters? i really like ifi products and cases. I have the ifi ipower and it improves the sound of all USB dacs I have tested. I have the ifi Gemini USB cable, and though it’s terrible design, it’s cool though, also. Nice to look at! man, I’d love the ipurifier. yours, John

Recently, I decided to listen to hi-fi upgrade possibilities at at local store. First were Wilson Audio Sophia 3 and Fidelity Acoustic RFM-3 speakers on an all-NAIM mid-level stack. Then Magnepan MMG 1.7 on another mid-level NAIM stack. Then Wilson Sasha W/P on a top-line NAIM stack. Finally, B&W 802 Diamond on a second from top level Classe Audio stack (600W monoblocks, pre, and cdp). While I could hear hi-fi possibilities on every set of gear, only the 802 diamond / classe setup sounded competitive or marginally better than my 20-year old taste in hi-fi (B&W 801 / top YBA stack) or Duntech Sovereigns, or Wilson X1 / top-line Mark Levinson stack, or even my cheezy PSB Stratus Gold / Rotel home listening rigs. Overall in each system, I found the fault at the source - the CD recordings themselves - each musical, but too far from the highest end of AD conversation (Pacific Microsonics, Meitner, etc.) in resolution. Musically, the were unpleasurable, with glaring defects. These same redbook demo CD's on the 802 diamond / classe stack sounded fantastic, largely due to the combo of the 802 diamonds and the Classe CA-M600 monoblocks in terms of amazing control and literally thunderous bass far better than most subwoofers, but musically (softly...) due to the upsampling Classe disk processor (quite nice, but I was shopping for new amps and speakers only so forget the specific model.) In this case, sonicially, upsampling really made the different to make a decent system sound "listenable" with CD sources! In another case at another showroom, listening to top line Bryston gear (28B SST2s...), with Focal Scala Utopia's, with red-book CD's again, the only one which proved listenable was Mark Levinson's Live at Red Rose Music, recorded with a decent A/D. The SACD layer would of sounded that music -more- listenable! I agree that full-resolution recording can sound much better, but in my experience, upsampling can easily "round-off" glaring harshness in low-resolution (16/44.1) digital recordings.

Hi everyone. I have a PC with a 24/192 KHz DA, which sounds fine enough with .WAV and MP3, but rather poor with 16/44.1 CD's. Does anyone recommend CD player software that can turn my Windows PC into a contemporary sounding CD player - oversampling to 24/192, nicely, and reading the digital stream directly for the CD, etc. I've never liked the sound of 16/44, except in a very few cases. Thanks!