The All Purpose Advice Thread

I'm not sure exactly where to put this, but I'm looking for a member on SBAF with 'Friend' status to help me out with something on the Sales sub-forum. I've checked with one of the mods and have already received clearance for this.

Basically I just need someone with posting privileges to post on my behalf several things which I wish to give away. Only a single post will be necessary, with no strings attached whatsoever. I'll process everything via PMs from there on.

Please do drop me a PM if you're willing to assist. Thanks.

 

How would you like to divide your budget by ten? Take a look at this thread. You might not be comfortable spending so little, but hey, try them and give them them away! Or... You should at least know about them, if you don't already.

There is a whole thread on the KEF LS50s and their competitors too.

 

I don't have IEMatch but I believe it acts as parallel resistor (current divider).

The lower the parallel resistace, the more attenuation it gives. IEMatch's specification tells something similar to this principle.

So what does parallel resistor do to output impedance? It will lower the output impedance. The resistance of 2 parallel resistors (for example, 2.5 Ohms and the output impedance) will be lower than the lowest one, I assume this is why they put < in the specification.
If 2.5 Ohms is lower than the onput impedance, the resistance will be less than 2.5 ohms and if the output impedance is lower than 2.5 ohms, the total resistance will be lower than the original output impedance; which is < 2.5 ohms.

How they got input impedance to be > 16 Ohms is beyond me thought.

There is also a comment in IEMatch thread on this site that it doesn't change the sound of IEM.

So I think IEMatch is not what you're looking for. I may be wrong, the best way is to try ut yourself.

 

My record collection has finally advanced past 20 records and now I need a place to put them. Does anyone have some suggestions for a decent looking, decently priced way to store them but in a way that they are still easily accessible? Preferably something free standing.

 

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/living_room/series/27534/

 

My collection isn't much bigger than yours. I have them stored in a typical cube organizer, something like this from IKEA http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/series/27534/

My collection fits in one of the cubes easily, and I have the other 3 cubes and the top as storage for other things (used to have TT on top but things have since rearranged)

Edit: Lol to @yotacowboy who linked the same thing as me simultaneously

 

Thank you TraverS! I will try it with a 0.5 ohm output z GO V2+ and see what happens.

 

I think life's going to allow me to settle into a desktop system for awhile.

I currently have usb->amb gamma 3->torpedo iii->modded hd800

I'll probably replace the usb with an AES16e (if I can find a decent price now that everyone bought them all up lol) or add a digiberry to my raspberry pi setup with some new power supplies. I'm open to advice on that if anyone has any experience there.

Perhaps more importantly, I'm considering replacing the gamma 3 with Gungnir Multibit or Yggdrasil. Can anyone offer any comparisons between y3 and either Gungnir Multibit or Yggdrasil?

Headphones will possibly remain hd800 or maybe elear.

 

Philharmonic audio doesn't do international shipping though. But I must admit that their speaker offerings look sooo attractive.
As for the LS50 link, thanks!

 

Wondering if the Elear owners here can recommend an amp that synergizes well with the Elear. I've done lots of research, and it doesn't seem like there's a consensus recommendation at this point.

- I've read several comments stating that the Jotunheim isn't a great match for the Elear, and it's not yet available in Canada to try out anyway
- OTL tube amps seem out of the question due to the Elear's low impedance
- I'd like to try something other than Schiit equipment, if possible

...that would leave a warmer SS amp or a hybrid tube amp as my remaining options, but because the Elear is so new, I'm struggling to find impressions of how specific amps in those categories complement the Elear specifically.

My budget's around $1.5K USD. Thanks for your input!

 

Hi Folks - looking to tap into the SBAF brain.

This issue concerns setup and optimization. I am using a Lenovo Thinkpad running Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit outputting to a Light & Harmonics Geek Out 450 to a Schiit Vali 1. I just installed Foobar 2000,

1) Should I download ASIO plug-in?

2) The GO450 control panel lists two options, USB Streaaming Mode and ASIO Buffer Size- I could use some recommnedations for these. LH website support is minimal and this is an aspect of audio equipment that I am very much a novice to.

3) Any other setup recommendations? I did look at the Windows 7 audio thread and diaabled power management on the USBhubs, thats it.

 

1. some people prefer asio, I prefer wasapi push. EDIT- oops meant event.
2. no clue
3. there is lots to try and hear if it makes a difference in your setup. Pull everything off the usb ports except the dac. Try running an external monitor instead of the noisy lcd or led panel, make sure no background apps are running in background, my plex app for movies was making my hp laptop sound a bit compressed. Try turning off bluetooth and wifi, try playing music off of sd card, try fidelizer.

oh and someone just posted a latency tester in the aes thread. Found my network card is causing some measurable issues, will try to hear if anything improves tonight during listening when I disable it.

Some may help, some may be really really small and some in combo may be more noticeable. Just depends.

 

Hey Bixby, thanks for getting me started. What i'm trying to do is eliminate the nagging thought that I am overlooking something easy to fix that may contribute to my listening. @zerodeefex , any thoughts?

 

In the first place, maybe try using WASAPI first, from Foobar- in event mode. It's the most modern and straightforward way to do it. ASIO drivers are a bit of a historical crapshoot- the ones that came with certain professional sound cards were badass and rock solid, but often ASIO support was just an afterthought or exercise in wrappers- and a third-party one at that.

WASAPI is baked into Win 7 onwards, and does allow a reasonable amount of sensible stuff (like exclusive mode). Event mode is better because it allows the driver to manage more of the buffers itself and effectively tell the player via an event when it wants more data- which allows the player to have a much simpler and more efficient (and/or dumber) threading setup to service it. If that doesn't work well, for example, for drivers don't yet have decent event mode support, try WASAPI push mode before looking at other sound APIs, perhaps.

YMMV, I am not a real doctor- just a pervert in a lab coat, etc..



Edit: ..and of course, I have no idea what sort of drivers, if any, the GO provides, and how good they are, and so forth, so kindly furnish your own pinch of salt with respect to the above.

 

@Kattefjaes , WASAPI event mode, cool. I'll look into that.
EDIT: just found an LH forum, go figure, but would still appreciate some help, thanks!

 

No worries. The author of Foobar recommends using WASAPI mode these days rather than his own kernel streaming plugin, as I recall..

 

OK, just dowloaded the WASAPI driver, maybe I'll hear a difference! Meanwhile, I'm going to Nickel mod a pair of Sennheiser HD439s I have, because now I kind of know about such things!

 

Well, the operative word is 'kinda,' the foam looks like it was attacked by termites,

 

@Wilson - dunno if you have any DSD files, but I'm pretty sure you'll need Asio to play them with Foobar. I have the GOv2 and normally use WASAPI in event mode, for what it's worth. But when I'm playing DSD content (very, very seldomly), I have to use Asio.

What I personally found with my Asus Transformer is the USB port on the tablet itself sounds markedly better than the one on the keyboard dock. I don't hear enough difference between Asio and WASAPI to recommend one over the other

 

Thanks @Mikoss, no DSD so far. I've got 3.0 USB, but it appears GO450 doesn't support that.