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How to drive yourself insane

It started out so innocently...  I have a CA 740c player/dac, a dedicated Mac Mini playing files through Audirvana, feeding a B&K Reference 5 S2 preamp which feeds a Rotel 1080 which finally dumps to Focal Aria 926 speakers with a Gallo TR2 sub.  Decent interconnects and power cables (Morrow Audio mostly on the ICs), al that.  Nothing fancy.  The 740c's transport was skipping so I sent it off for repair and it didn't come back for over a month.  I lost the DAC for the Mac and CD play capacity.

I get impatient and wonder what's out there.  Audiogon was so seductive.  I try to do my homework reading up on DS vs multibit, DAC chips, upsampling or not, interconnect limitations per source, etc. and never could get to the bottom of just how much better an 800-1000 dollar DAC would sound than what I already had.  Yes, Schiit offered a 14 day trial and when I got my deck back I intended to do an A/B comparison with Schiit Bimby, but all the reviews and such, along with the technical pages, never really gave a clear differentiating message to make it worth exploring.

I ended up ditching the optical input from the Mac, which had a limitation, for USB out to a Schiit Eitr box which provided RCA out to the 740c, which had no USB input.  So now I can pipe 24/192 FLACs to the 740c which upsamples to 24/384 like it or not.  Sounds good, but what would sound better?

This has me wondering if a better DAC would make a difference given the limitations in my system.  I see $10K DACS and wonder what on earth they need to sound their best and differentiate from a $1K NAD DAC I see on Audioadvisor.  This is the rub that necessitates audition - the DAC is but one part in a signal path from source to speaker, and who knows what impact downstream components will have.  No one can tell you with any precision so you have to buy on faith and try to not succumb to placebo effect, or hunt for a trial.  In my case, I don't know that the Schiit trial with restock fee has that high a probability of a 'wow' factor that would make purchase imperative.  So, I vacillate between cold comfort of knowing I've made the best of what I have, and wondering if a Bimby w/o any upsampling voodoo would really sound better than the 740c, and asking myself it it would be worth the freight and restock charge to find out.  My real problem is I don't have the money to buy/sell components and have a more or less perpetual audition system.  How can you finally say "enough!"?
baxsc01
randy-11
1,913 posts
 
Even Simpler, stop "doing homework" and reading audio threads and magazines.
Go get some room treatments and just listen to music and be happy with moving them around the room and using your measurement microphone with REW.

You will find out that the more you move, the more perceived inadequacies you will find with your system.

Keep BUSY!!
audioengr
3,282 posts
 

It would be wise to filter what you read on these forums.  Find the industry expert and listen to them.

I can tell you that most audiophiles make the mistake of trying one DAC after another thinking that this is the path to nirvana.  It's not.  It is a system, not just one part that gets you to nirvana.

It's like changing a phono preamp over and over without changing the source, the stylus/cartridge and arm.

Start with your source and make it exceptional.  Then try some DAC's. 

By source, I mean the feed from your CD player or computer.  Jitter is the #1 problem with digital audio, so find ways of minimizing it.  If you want to spin CD's, add a reclocker like the Synchro-Mesh to reduce jitter.  If you want to stream from a Sonos, add a reclocker to that.  If you are using USB from a Mac, this is more difficult for you to reduce jitter.  You almost need to get a Berkeley USB converter, used on Audiogon, and drive coax to your DAC with a really good coax cable.  Relying on the USB interface that is built-into an inexpensive DAC will probably not get you there.

Some find that older NOS DACs sound much more like analog and there is now a resurgence of custom ladder DAC designs that are becoming popular as well.  Some of these NOS DACs are inexpensive on ebay.

Then there is Ethernet, the best new interface that is generally lower in jitter.  There are some gadgets to play with from Sonore audio and others.  Some of these can enable you to use Roon, which is very popular.  I have mostly abandoned USB in favor of Ethernet for my own products.  There are fewer hoops to jump through than USB to achieve superb results.

Steve N

Empirical Audio

baxsc01 OP
4 posts
 
Well, I agree with the 'ignorance is bliss' part...  Supposedly Odin plucked out his own eye for knowledge, and what did it get him - two crows crapping on his cape.  There you go.

I'm confident I've done the best with what I have, jitter control and all.  I have a hunch that the 'wow' factor would cost thousands of dollars I don't have, so bimby, gumby, NAD, all the ear candy I see everywhere for 700 to a grand will have to sit there taunting me, and unlike Ulysses I can't stuff wax in my ears to thwart their siren call - my speakers will be 'veiled' and lose inner detail, or I can just stick to Judas Priest and GWAR and not worry about it.
sevs
301 posts
 
I feel your pain: had the same dilemma when my two Naim NAP250s got stuck in Naim-USA "recap" limbo and I bought BAT VK75SE as a temp substitute. Overall sound was at freakishly another level, I started listening more to "classical" than my usual fix of PF, KS, TD, PT, David Sylvian... But it was painfully clear that my Naim SBLs is a poor match to BAT amp. Did I go shopping? No... ;-( When NAPs got home I sold BAT here on A-Gon: still remember the pain of this thing called "to bite a bullet"! 

Now that you asked, maybe its a Universal Pain: should I have married that other girl, should I have gotten a lease on Jag XKR instead of buying Saab?... But somehow that VK75se stuck as a painful experience of my choices...


uberwaltz's avatar
uberwaltz
13,381 posts
 
It is definitely an addiction, quite possibly a sickness and for some quite incurable!
I found myself mired deep in the rabbit hole but think so far I have managed to crawl back out and am just enjoying listening to the music instead of worrying what might be waiting around the corner that could be "better"
Indeed I bought a 3k DAC, then as yourself started thinking about even higher end.
I changed tack completely, sold the DAC, in process of selling my power amps and have bought an integrated with built in DAC, that might not be quite as sonically "good" as my previous DAC setup but I am just turning on the Hegel and enjoying wither vinyl or cd or streaming music and kicking back.
Consider yourself to have had a lucky escape....lol.
Of course I am also fairly certain this present mindset of mine will change after a few days of perusing ebay and audiogon!
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