Are you now controlling volume from your LKS, Martin?

I thought you were a big fan of active preamps?

Ah yes now I remember!

Here you go. DAC (right-most blue) feeds buffer (orange) which then drives power amp. DAC does volume duties.

Today I disassembled my BG7TBL master clock, added a couple of 100nF ceramic bypass capacitors to the power rails and some DoDo Dead Mat sound deadening material to the inside of the rather rattly cover. Very effective. I've got it warming up now for a session later.



Meanwhile, my second QP-1 power supply is being built and I should receive it in a week's time.  This will power the master clock and EtherREGEN.

I think the OCXO was still coming up to temperature last night when I had a listen, although this should be faster with the Dead Mat insulation in the cover. Still, there seemed to be just a touch more clarity, or perhaps it was my imagination.

I'll do some more listening tonight.

My 2nd Coherent QP-1 is plumbed in and feeding the EtherREGEN and master clock. I know to leave it for a good long time to burn in, but it's already pulling away from the Chinese LPSU it replaced.

I'm loving some Yes - Fragile played loud at the end of the week.

I hope to get mine upgraded in a month or two to power the Mutec

In summary of all the recent changes I've made: Canare LV-77S master clock cables and OCXO clock tweaks, Sonore ultraRendu streamer, Mad Scientist Black Magic USB cable, 2nd Coherent QP-1 power supply, Mad Scientist Magic Tubes and most recently the LKS DAC mods posted in the LKS thread.

The system sounds more holographic with the speed and agility to start/stop like never before, and a dynamic punch that is exhilarating. The scale is still there and so is the bass. What's different is a further de-blurring of very fine detail, a soundstage that goes deep and wider than the speaker placement (it sometimes shocks me when my eyes are closed, as if someone is in the room with me), and the naturalness of instrumentation without any digital edge or sheen.

My go-to test of sibilance is Paul Simon's voice, which seems to set off systems quite easily. It is further reduced until I no longer think of it at all, proof that the lower treble is more controlled, which tallies with the loss of that slight sheen or glare. This helps with the detail in plucked strings and other tiny cues in the music. Voices can swell incredibly - a performer like Cat Stevens really shows off the dynamic range of vocals.

What's most pleasing with the direction the system has taken is that detail and insight have increased, but not harshness, glare or any other factor to shorten my listening sessions. Dynamic slam is up but so is micro-detail. Bass is tighter than ever while treble detail is finer but not in my face. Bass can be very punchy on some recordings - thinking of Steely Dan here. Music just flows, it's exciting and makes me want more. My shit-list of recordings almost all sound better now, so the system brings out the best rather than the worst from these challenging takes.

Going back two years when I started down the single-source streaming route, I had most of the building blocks in place, but not the glue to hold it well together. It lacked depth, subtlety, low level detail and pretty much any ambience or note decay. How different it sounds now!

I discovered last night that in reconnecting everything after the DAC mods, I had forgotten to reconnect the four grounding cables to the Mutec reclocker. It was already sounding superb. So I reconnected all four and found it didn't sound quite as good??? I decided to connect only one grounding lead to the AES ground (the output I am using) and that sounds great. Perhaps grounding via multiple routes is not the best thing.

So I've put three grounding cables back in my box and am scratching my head once again at the illogical vagaries of signal grounding.