The All Purpose Advice Thread

Discussion in 'Advice Threads' started by purr1n, Sep 26, 2015.

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  1. ColtMrFire

    ColtMrFire Writes better fan fics than you

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    In my experience with the schiit DACs spdif is superior to even gen5 usb. I have an Onkyo C7030 CD player, costs less than $200, and it is better than the gen5 on my Gungnir Multibit. Congested is the last thing I'd call it. Something sounds up with your chain.

    It may be worth cleaning the coax cable connectors. I clean miine every few months and it makes a difference I would also suggest cleaning the laser on the CD player... Another thing I do regularly and seems to make a difference. Best Buy/Amazon sells laser cleaning discs.
     
  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    From PM, regarding tubes, ZDS, Jot, romantic, soundstage, etc.:

    Errors of omission and errors of commission. These things are not mutually exclusive.

    Solid-state amps tend to commit errors of omission. They sound clean and accurate but the sense of aliveness and immediacy is lost.

    Tube amps tend to commit errors of commission. They capture the aliveness and immediacy, but add coloration: tube bloom, harmonic richness, or worse, an overly thick sound.

    So basically neither approach is fully transparent. It's just harder to notice when solid-state isn't transparent (missing something rather than adding something).

    Vali 2 and MCTH are low cost hybrids. As such, they encompass less the best of both worlds, but more the worse of both worlds. This does not mean that they sound bad. They certainly are enjoyable for what they do.

    The tube amp makers have their own approaches. Woo tends to sound thick, slow, soft, more romantic. I dislike Woo as do most others here. Too colored and lacks the resolution of the better boutique brands.

    Donald North has a bloomier wetter bassier high impact sound which is very intimate engaging.

    EC has a less tubey almost solid-state like sound. The ZDS happens to be the warmest most "luxurious" sounding of the EC amps. The AF is more resolving and more neutral, maybe slightly warm. (FYI, I ran a driver tube with the ZDS which made it sound less warm - most other ZDS owners prefer a thicker sound - something to keep in mind).

    The Jot compared to the DNA and EC amps sounds flat and dull. There is less emotional involvement in the music despite it having no tube colorations. While the Jot has near zero distortion, the DNA (Stellaris and Stratus 2) and EC amps have better clarity. It's strange.
     
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2019
  3. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    As far as tube gear, they do tend to have larger deeper soundstages than solid-state gear. This can't be measured. We think it might be the tiny phase shift up high from transformers, but this does not explain how OTL amps also exhibit this effect. Tube gear with AC filament heaters where the electron cloud is more evenly disbursed tend to have a particularly expansive soundstage.

    I would just take soundstage for what it is and not worry about it.

    Different DAC filters will have a different soundstage. Different topologies will have a different soundstage. Less feedback also results in a more expansive soundstage. Heck, one opamp (which means it measures almost perfectly) phonostage I previously owned had a deeper and more expansive soundstage that most tube phonostages.
     
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2019
  4. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    Connecting the chassis ground of both amps to single ground pin of one of them fixed the problem: no hum, no static no matter what is the position of the of the volume knobs. The safe thing after doing that is to check that there is a connection between the ground pin to the chassis of both amplifiers. The amps sound cleaner, the sound stage improved and bass is better controlled. I need to make it permanent but it either means modification to the chassis or running the amps without cover. Probably it will be the latter, I am lazy.
     
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2019
  5. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    I mean, it can save money if you know how to stop. Or you end up building a lot since you've invested in tools. It's already cost me more then I thought. It's also easy to pay more for parts since you think you are saving money.
     
  6. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    Trying to understand the importance of connecting the chassis to the power ground pin. I understand the it protects against improperly wired receptacle (reverse polarity). Any other reason why it should be there? I am asking because at some point working on the hum from my headphone amps I disconnected the wire between the chassis and the ground pin on one of them and connected it to receptacle I wired myself the day before. It stopped humming.
    So if reverse polarity is the only safety problem, it could be easily contained, and it may fix grounding problems of some amps.

    Eventually I grounded both chassis through a single pin, it helped, but it's clumsy.
    https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...purpose-advice-thread.19/page-383#post-248350

    Disconnecting chassis ground would be much simpler.
     
  7. Ardacer

    Ardacer Friend

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    And very lethal in case something made the chassis go live voltage for any reason.
    The reason this helped is really strange to me, honestly, but glad it helped. Just keep any metal available to be touched grounded.
     
  8. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    Thanks, That's how it s wired, both chassis are grounded.
     
  9. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    @wormcycle

    One reason to ground a chassis is for blocking out EM interference. Look up what a Faraday Cage is.
     
  10. djchup

    djchup New

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    I wanted to post an update as I ended up solving this issue. The source of my noise was a ground loop which was traveling from [ground line on my usb from pc to modi multibit -> ground on rca out from modi multibit -> nfb-1amp -> headphone].

    The reason I still heard this noise when using Toslink input was.....I didn't unplug the usb I was just using input switching on the modi multibit. After hours of troubleshooting I came home from work yesterday and it occurred to me that the usb ground could still be dirtying my rca ground even if I don't have the usb input selected. on toslink input I can add and remove audible noise at will by plugging and unplugging usb from my modi multibit while toslink input is selected.

    I think I'll just keep using my current setup with the optical input. Although using my motherboard's optical out means I have to use realtek drivers instead of schiit's drivers, not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. Now that I know what the problem was I guess any of the solutions I was considering would have remedied the problem. Eitr would have Isolated the usb ground with transformers and solved the problem, a balanced DAC wouldn't have used ground line to transfer signal to the amp.
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2019
  11. iFi audio

    iFi audio MOT iFi Audio

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    Lethal is the right word to describe the sensation :eek:
     
  12. Sunflower_sutra

    Sunflower_sutra Acquaintance

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    Hey guys,

    Looking for some guidance. Trying to plan for the future in regards to digital hifi upgrades.

    Currently got a yggdrasil A1 DAC and just brought usb gen 5, which I'm waiting to do a self install. It's currently connected to a very noisy pc which I use for Plex and foobar. Looking to go down the root of roon mainly for its use of metadata and eventually for multiroom audio.

    Because I've got a yggdrasil (which I'm very happy with) am I right in thinking that there isn't any point in roon upsampling? As I'm trying to figure out how powerful of a computer I need?

    Also I believe in purchasing speakers which suit a room, not buying speakers that don't and trying to correct it with room correction but if I did do room correction to squeeze some extra performance out of it. would the way the yggdrasil upsampels and filters impact on room correction? Also this may sound odd but I currently really enjoy the sound of my hifi. I love it's little quirks and faults ha. Would room correction strip these out and make it into some perfectly boringly sterile sounding hifi?
     
  13. RobS

    RobS RobS? More like RobDiarrhea.

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    Thanks for replying to me. I've cleaned the coax cable connectors, but still no difference. I bought the cables brand new 2 weeks ago. It's weird but my Schiit Eitr and the Modi Multibit I had seemed to provide greater clarity and resolution. It could all just be in my head since the Bifrost Multibit I have does include the Gen 5 USB port. It's possible my PC is producing a lot of USB noise and interference. I still blame my PC for killing the Modi 2 when I had it 2 years ago.

    Anyway I purchased a cheap USB DAC with SPDIF input to see if I'm getting the same problems.
     
  14. klyrish

    klyrish Facebook Friend

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    I still greatly enjoy my Gungnir DS but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the multi-bit goodness of the Modi Multibit. Music felt more...alive for lack of a better word and I believe I'm totally over DS. I know I have the option of upgrading to a Gungnir Multibit and am definitely considering it, but I went deep into the rabbit hole over the weekend, doing a TON of research on DACs and am very intrigued by the Theta Digital Chroma 396. I can't seem to find any information about it outside of a couple of reviews, one of which was from 1997, and absolutely no comparisons to modern DACs.

    Anyone here have any experience with the Chroma 396? It uses two PCM67 chips which are 18-bit multibit processors with an additional 1-bit processor. Both of the reviews I found mentioned slamming bass and enormous soundstages so I'm really curious about it but am worried that I'll end up with something that sounds no better than my Modi Multibit but at a far greater cost.
     
  15. Parsten

    Parsten New

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    Hi
    I am new here. the better the DAC, the better job it can do – with all file types.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 13, 2019
  16. ColtMrFire

    ColtMrFire Writes better fan fics than you

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  17. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    I'm pretty sure that's just a spambot considering it shoved a link into the quote.
     
  18. ColtMrFire

    ColtMrFire Writes better fan fics than you

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    [​IMG]
     
  19. iFi audio

    iFi audio MOT iFi Audio

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    That's quite accurate.
     
  20. RobS

    RobS RobS? More like RobDiarrhea.

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    I'm looking at getting another two channel speaker setup. There's a description on Schiit's Vallhalla 2 page that says: "not your father's tube amp...syrupy, tubby, euphonically colored tube sound", which is exactly the kind of sound I'm looking for. Would such a thing be possible if I set the budget at $1k?

    I've looked around at various websites that sell vintage gear but it looks like I would need to spend thousands (if not tens of thousands) so maybe this is impossible. Even $1k barely gets into only the speakers themselves. I'm not into vinyl but that's something I might look into in the future.

    Just a quick search on google I've seen some recommendations for a Fisher KX200 with Mullard tubes and AL 890C speakers. That pushes the budget a bit past $1300.

    Anyone have any suggestions or am I just nuts?
     
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