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Post by jandl100 on Aug 2, 2017 5:27:44 GMT
I am far from a purist these days. I used to be a crazed audio-puritan intent on achieving the minimum circuitry in the signal path, especially those dastardly volume controls .... but I've grown up now and judge by results. At one point in the recent past I think my system had 6 ways to adjust the volume. I'm down to a mere 4 at the moment. My goal is to attain 10 at some point in the future.
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Post by ChrisB on Aug 2, 2017 6:01:08 GMT
Now that would be a very 'Noble' achievement.
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Post by MartinT on Aug 2, 2017 7:16:53 GMT
The Pass power amp looks like a keeper. I'm not surprised. Do you suffer from the heat output, especially where it's located?
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Post by jandl100 on Aug 2, 2017 9:07:24 GMT
Yes, it's a keeper. Well, for now. But it is a fantastic amp. It gets hot, but I don't think that's a problem. It's completely open to the sides with 2 or 3 inches at the top so I think ventilation is OK. The big 'handles' at the front are actually massive heatsinks, and they are in the open. I've seen folk say that a big class A amp (the first 30wpc in this case) heats the room unacceptably but it was fine in the brief heatwave a month or so ago.
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Post by jandl100 on Sept 20, 2017 16:54:20 GMT
The first new piece of gear in quite a while. I bought it for fun and out of curiosity. It's a Wadia 151 PowerDAC and I'm having a bit of an existential problem with it. -- it's too small (8 inches square and 2 inches high) and too low powered (25/50 wpc into 8/4 ohms) and doesn't cost anywhere near enough to be taken seriously in a system that purports to be 'high end-ish'. But it sounds brilliant. - and not just at delicate girly classical chamber music; I just played Dream Theater 'Pull me under' at 11 on the digital dial and it sounded fantastic. In the photo below it's standing on a normal sized piece of gear.
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Post by ChrisB on Sept 20, 2017 17:30:11 GMT
A DAC with a little power amp. A power amp with a DAC? I just Googled it - interesting.
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Post by John on Sept 20, 2017 17:32:43 GMT
Nice result Jerry
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Post by jandl100 on Sept 20, 2017 17:44:24 GMT
A DAC with a little power amp. A power amp with a DAC? I just Googled it - interesting. Yes, it was the novel technical design that got me interested in it. And then I came across this post from another forum whilst researching it a bit .... Wadia 151 PowerDAC: One of those WTF moments
Thu Sep 18, 2014 2:49 pm I borrowed a Wadia 151 PowerDAC from Cloney yesterday. It's a tiny little thing that packages up a DAC and a 25-ish watt Class D amp with a Wadia badge on the front, and my intention is to use it in a small and simple system beside the TV in the kitchen: plug in my NUC, some speakers, Bob's your uncle. Not actually having any speakers in the kitchen currently, I decided to see how it would fare in the main system. I took the USB cable from my printer, plugged my entirely-not-modified-for-sonic-excellence laptop into the USB input and connected the Kharmas. I used XBMC along with its nice interface of album art, etc, to play some FLAC files. You know where this is going so I won't labour the point, but I seriously spent the rest of the evening wondering why the hell we spend so much money on exotica. Was it as good as the Wadia CDP/Graaf valves combo? In many ways yes, in many ways no, in some ways better. All told, if you'd stuck it in a shiny box and told me it was 10k I wouldn't have disbelieved you at all. Sure, it lacked a bit of air and a little midrange valvey magic, images were a little smaller, but the bass was better and more solid, and the whole sound was so balanced you'd be hard pushed to criticise it. Nothing jumped out at me, nothing sounded excessively anything, it was all just good and solid and accomplished, and I listened for quite some time. The spec says 25w but I don't believe that -- I had no problems with power at any point. I'm a bit rattled to be honest, and starting to doubt my ears and my sanity. Admittedly I didn't listen to any classical because I haven't ripped any classical discs yet, so maybe I'll hear all its deficiencies in due course. For now, though, I'm dead impressed.
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Post by MartinT on Sept 21, 2017 6:02:02 GMT
I was going to ask if it's class D but you've answered it. Why no Wadia logo on it?
Looks fab!
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Post by jandl100 on Sept 21, 2017 6:43:27 GMT
It says Wadia on the back for some reason! Stock shot ...
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Post by jandl100 on Sept 25, 2017 17:27:37 GMT
New headphones. I dearly love the Fostex T50RPiii that Lawrence(001) on AOS recommended. The best 'phones I had owned, and far from the most expensive. So I just couldn't resist when these Fostex Reference 'phones came along. Here's the review that convinced me to have a try. www.cnet.com/uk/news/take-it-to-the-limit-fostex-th600-headphones/Arrived today, and I am deeply in love. Hugely immersive, fast and powerful. Dead easy to drive with their very low 25 Ohm impedance.
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Post by julesd68 on Sept 25, 2017 17:36:50 GMT
Congratulations Jerry, that must be very satisfying indeed ...
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Post by MartinT on Sept 25, 2017 18:15:29 GMT
They certainly look the biz and probably win in the isolation department.
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Post by tim1750 on Sept 26, 2017 6:53:56 GMT
Nice one Jerry,i thought you couldn't beat the t50's,i'm real happy for you mate.
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Post by jandl100 on May 6, 2018 7:03:56 GMT
Quite a bit has gone on since I last posted back in Sept last year. I'll do a bit of catchup sometime. But yesterday a new DAC arrived so I'll start there. SMSL (which seems to have a good following here) M8 DAC. It's about the size of a pack of playing cards and is silly-good. Online review link at the end. I've only tried it so far with a Halide Bridge USB/digital co-ax converter into the DAC's co-ax socket. It will be interesting to try it direct to the USB input sometime, and also from a CD transport. The music signal comes straight from my laptop USB socket. The display screen is tiny!! Which is a minor pain. It's interesting to see that the later, similar sized SMSL M9 has a large screen sticking up at the front! The M8 has a choice of 3 digital filters, that I haven't played around with yet. It was a "what!" moment as soon as it started playing for its exceptional 3D focussed imaging. I mean " What?!?! ". Hmm, OK. Imaging great (really great, the best I've heard from digital) but the rez was decent but that's all. I had just for immediate convenience hooked it into the wall mains socket via a cheapo mains block (used mainly for powering the fish tank ) but then I sorted the cable nest and plugged it into my pukka hifi supply (3KVa BMU and good 'blocks and mains cables) and Wow. A very worthwhile "up" in terms of rez. It's got exceptional imaging and the clarity and dynamic precision is akin to a freshly cleaned window compared to the relative murk of way too many other DACs. I just like good cheap Chinese DACs. It's weird of me, I know, but there you go. I can't help it - the medication prescribed by my GP just doesn't seem to have worked. You cannae say I haven't tried lots of expensive DACs. Viz, Chord Hugo2, Auralic Vega, NAD M51, Cambridge 851D, Wyred4Sound DAC1 etc. As well as lots of more mid-priced Rega, Arcam irDAC, Audiolab MDAC, DACMagic etc. Some of those are excellent in their way, but none have the allround tick-da-boxes completeness that I hear from the best of the cheap Chinese DACs I have come across. Yes, there are LOTS of crap cheap DACs out there, but the good ones can be exceptional and for me beat the higher tech expensive ones. They don't seem, to my ears, to have extra fancy bits (sonically, and probably technically) in there that ultimately get in the way of the music. There's a caveat on the SMSL M8 due to short familiarity time so far, but I sense that my 2 fave DACs are, as of even date, the SMSL M8 and the Xiang Sheng DAC-01A (with Western Electric 396A valve). Both about £200ish new. It seems to me financially worthwhile to pull out the stops on speakers, but not so much on DACs! Review: www.musicservertips.com/product-reviews/smsl-m8-dac/
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Post by MartinT on May 6, 2018 7:56:01 GMT
Another SMSL winner, they do seem to produce some excellent kit.
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Post by John on May 6, 2018 8:40:26 GMT
I used to have the M9 I managed to get some decent sounds from it via bughead when I had the fanless server I not tried the M8 but lots of good reviews What are using amp wise now Jerry
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Post by jandl100 on May 6, 2018 9:02:20 GMT
What are using amp wise now Jerry Schiit Saga passive pre (with nice remote!) Trigon TRE 50 monoblocks
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Post by MikeMusic on May 6, 2018 9:15:27 GMT
SMSL do it again.
Frightening for other manufacturers
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Post by jandl100 on May 6, 2018 9:21:41 GMT
What are using amp wise now Jerry The Trigon TRE 50 mono amps and the Schiit Saga passive pre It has a valve buffer output option, or a straight passive. I very seldom switch to the valve, prefering the extra dab of clarity and focus from the pure passive.
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