The All Purpose Advice Thread

Sorry, I did not read the bit about broader taste comments:

I largely believe that the music you listen to dictates the kind of system you'd prefer. My favourite artists are those like Eric Clapton, Leonard Cohen, Diana Krall etc. Acoustic, vocal centric singer songwriter stuff I guess. Here's a lovely song I've been hooked on this week:

 

I reviewed the Mydac on my digitalaudiodirections blog. You may wish to read some of the dacs I have reviewed including a Schiit r2r dac If you hear what I hear, then read about some other ones that have been reviewed, otherwise take with a grain of salt and get your hands on some for a first hand listen. I did not review the Topping dac I bought because it was a raving piece of crap, not sure of model probably a D30.

As for Cirrus dacs, while they may have a characteristic sound like many brands, do not make a sweeping judgement based on one dac. I use a Cirrus based dac for my main system that is fantastic.

My take is that you can get pretty great sound out of a cheap dac like a Modi or Zen but have to go up market quite a bit to find something significantly better. If you can find one an Ultra Fi Dac 41 is very good for the money

I have heard the older Vali and a bunch of tube amps and have owned 650s twice, currently using 600s. I see the appeal of the Vali 2+. Dacs I would put on my short list include some of the Ifi dacs, Lavry, Gungnir (both), Best use of your time might include reading this one mans opinion thread. https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/life-after-yggdrasil-watering-the-ash.4036/

Good luck!

 

Thank you for your suggestions @bixby , I shall check them out!

 

@TimbreJunkie In the UK you can probably find a used Prism Lyra or Callia for much cheaper than here.

 

If you can audition to RME ADI-2 DAC, try this one. If you cannot this is still pretty close to what you describing, and you experience impression of Bifrost 2

 

The SES box doesn't say anything about impedance or if it's intended for digital or analog. The cable splitter specifies AES and impedance matching, and saves on 1 connection by plugging straight into the source. I guess I'll try that one.

I knew I'd seen something here on this subject.

 

I have a question that is probably incredibly stupid (and dangerous), but here goes...

If I use only one terminal of a push pull amp to drive a speaker and connect the other speaker terminal to the amp's ground, will I get single-ended drive, or blow up the amp?

Edit: Found my answer, and its a lot less dramatic than expected... push pull amps still have a common ground, unlike balanced amps.

 

Hey guys, please help a dumb old stand up comic out!!!! Both these transports are easily found in a Google search. I currently run a Marantz CD6006 to Yggdrasil to Phonitor XE. Looking to upgrade the transport and am trying to decide between the Simaudio Moon 260DT CD transport or the Jays Audio CDT2 - MK3. Please help me out as I have done as much homework as I can but the specs mean very little to me. I am the word guy, but maths and numbers - not so much. They both appear to have balanced outputs which is great for my set up but is one shitting on the other and I am just too dumb to interpret the info? The Moon is about a grand more expensive also.
Thanks guys.
Rob

 

FWIW, the Jays seems to hold its value better -- used prices for Mk2 seem to be in the $1500-$1800 range, according to Hifishark, so the Mk 3 presumably higher. The Moon, on the other hand, about $1300. So if it looks like they're on par sound quality wise -- and no red flags on reliability -- Jays seems to be the way to go.

 

I'm looking at a quad of Tesla E88CC and the seller has posted these measurements, says they test "STRONG". Can someone tell me which numbers are important for level matching when used as a L/R pair? They'd be going into my incoming SFD-1. Thanks!

 

Thanks mate, appreciate it.

 

Question, trying to organize my setup, can Schiit Dacs & amplifiers be positioned vertically on their sides? Have a modius and jot 2 incoming, and have the Asgard 3 now, thinking of stacking them side by side vertically to save desk space, or at least the modius. No sure if that’s a bad idea tho

 

A question from my brother. He's looking for a cheap hdmi or optical/spdif dac to take signal from his tv to his speakers. The headphone jack on the tv is horribly noisy. He's looking for something in the $30-ish range that he can get from amazon(Canada).

The only things I see there are generic noname brands. I'm fine with noname as long as it's actually functional. We're not looking for audiophile quality, just "not noisy and doesn't chop off half the FR" which is a pretty low bar, but there's a lot of garbage out there.

 

Fiio D3? I was using one for a while; not too offensive, but I do find the Modi Multibit and dac1321 to be improvements

Mine is now surplus. Swap for your dead MA750s? I need more cable-soldering practice...

 

I thought about recommending Fiio D3. I bought it years ago for $26 CAD for my TV and it works. t still costs $19 in the US but Amazon.ca...$58 plus tax. That's idiotic but this is the only one that used to be below $30 that I know works.
https://www.amazon.ca/D03K-Digital-...ld=1&keywords=fiio+dac&qid=1614367378&sr=8-11

 

I think I'll take you up on that. I'll send you a pm.

 

Also, something that could split the difference price-wise but gets favorable reviews, there's the Audiolab 6000 CDT. Put another way, if I had to buy a transport tomorrow out of necessity, it'd be the Audiolab, or a pro Denon or Tascam.

 

The Schiit CD transport should be out this year and will be optimized for Unison at both ends. Since you’re going into Yggdrasil, why not wait for that? I bet it’s going to kick some serious ass for the price.

 

Couldnt find too much specific info for this. It's my understanding that a lot of solid state amps should be kept on as long as possible to sound their best (i.e. Schiit Asgard 3), I'm curious if there are specific topology / designs / amp types that need to be kept on vs ones that dont need to be?

Also asking specifically (Please dont hate me i don't actually own this... a friend lent it to me to help troubleshoot lol) because i have a Burson soloist SL mk2 on hand. It hadn't been turned on for more than a year, and upon first turn it on it wouldn't turn on sometimes, but now after keeping it on for a while it seems to be stable again. Which is super weird to me. I dont have any background in electrical engineering so i have no clue why it would do that, but it seems to not operate properly if it doesnt get turned on in a long time?

Normally i would say i'll just keep it on like my other amps, but burson stuff scares me (another friend had his gustard burn out because of burson op amps). Am I right to be paranoid & keep this thing off when im not using to prevent burning my house down? lol

 

Thanks Cowboy, good call.