I have a PS Audio Perfectwave DAC II and I'm currently using a NAD 565bee as the transport. Simple question; how much does the transport affect the sound and at what cost?
What Sonic difference are you looking to obtain? That would go a long way with recommendations. BTW, you might consider measuring your rooms response and room treatments before spending any more money. That room looks pretty empty and reflective.
Hard drive is better...imo. transports not as much as other components. And....in most cases, very little. To compare a transport to a tt, arm and cartridge is a far reach. Money would be better spent on other components or software.
If the instrument went from middle to outside the left speaker something is, or was, seriously wrong. A proper set up system regardless of components will never misplace instruments like that. Before you spend another penny you should figure out what is or what was wrong. Calling this an improvement is misplaced.
A properly setup system will never place instruments as radically out of place as you mentioned. Images should never go from center stage to far left. That is not something that cables or equipment will impact to the degree you described. either something was broken or it is hyperbole. No piece of equipment properly designed and implemented does this, period!
Please review what you have written. If this was actually what you meant you must consider my be point. Otherwise if you believe that a properly functioning piece of equipment is rearranging instrument placement your open to anything. Equipment can improve perceived depth or slightly increase width but an instrument going from 0 degrees axis to 65....well, that is not the way equipment works. 55 degrees to 60, okay....but 0 to anything else is an indication of something seriously wrong.
Actually, I'm not trying to win. Honestly, there must have been something wrong with your preamp to mess up your soundstage to such a degree...as you describe it, you were almost listening in mono. Since you still have the pre you should plug it back in and check out that it is operating correctly before you sell it.
I have no doubt you are hearing improvements and that your new pre delivers the goods. What I'm questioning is, what was wrong with your prior preamp.
As a recording engineer, when mixing from multi-track sources I take particular care on where instruments are placed within the soundstage. Regardless of wire, cable, DAC or any other electronics I could never shift an instrument around from 0 degrees to any other place without using my DAW. For the life of me I can't see how this could happen. Imagine Jimmy Page playing his guitar straight in front of you....and then magically....without any movement of source components his sound magically appears 20 feet to the left. He didn't move....nor did his amp...speaker or for that matter the room he was playing in. You have to move the source itself or change the acoustics of the room to get a shift in source placement.
I'm not trying to be a pendant but something is wrong electronically for that to happen. Again. I would check your cables....if you are using balanced cables maybe your right cable has a short and you have essentially lowered the voltage in that channel...thus shifting your image to the left.
It could be something else for that matter....but you really should look into why this is happening.
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