Pro vs. Consumer Equipment

The ART DIO had been hailed as a great low cost unit by people like Brian Chaney who designs the VMPS line of speakers I believe. Also of what I remember there have been Best SOund Awards given to him at CES I believe.This with using a Modded DIO in the line.

I bought one to better my aging DAC section of my Phillips CD-80. While I have no way of judging what it might surpass it seems to me that there must be unbias'd evals done with the unit that people have tried.

Shanling is one unit I hear alot about in which the Modded DIO surpasses for sonic playback.

I have not heard any negatives conserning Wayne of Bolder being mentioned in all this. Maybe he is using components that others are not.

I cannot use the ART Amp as it does not have enough power for my needs . I do think Dan could have gone alittle different way in promoting his mods of the unit. Maybe there is more here than anyone is seeing. I do not know.

I do know that in some instances that going the Modified route is a better value than getting stock equiptment.The value of the mods are in question though. In the case of taking a stock Pro amp and modding it with a 2.5X the value of the stock unit is questionable,but then again I would have to hear it also or see the results others have had.In my case I would not beable to use it given my choice of speakers.

Results remain to be seen,good luck!

Sean:
I respect your opinion and I can not counter with experience of doing any A\B testing except with the Phillips 16bit stock DAC which sounded more closed in and electronic.

Here in the Northeast there are no stores that even carry DACs so on the suggestion of an audio advisor on the BB's I I made the purchase of the DIO and had it modded.

After I get the rest of my system in order I will do some research and purchase or borrow another DAC to see what I can findout in my system.

I freely admit that there is alot of hype going on in the BB's of mail order Cos. as far as I can see. One Co. which really alerted me to this aspect was reading about Axiom which I had considerd getting speakers from because they use Metal Driver Technology like NEAR who went under and I liked NEARs ,but could not find anyone that had them. I wrote a piece in SoundStage about the Axes being all they are as compared to the NEARs I rememberd and there was stanch resistance to my observations because Axiom is still in Biz. NEAR is also still in business,but Bill Kieltyka does not make home models any longer.

I now have modified NEARs that I will someday A\B test against Axes to see what I hear. Someone that did get to listen to some Axes were totally unimpressed with what they had heard,so it should be intresting.

I think alot of it has to do with the mine has to be better than yours syndrome also because I own it.Then there is a loyal following which there is nothing wrong with as long as one can be unbias'd and realise that there is or might be something better for the same cost.

Getting back to DACs.I remember the best I had heard was from a ARC\Mark Lev\Proceed\NEAR setup and it was very 3D then and I look to get that type of sound in my room maybe alittle more neutral.

Taking nothing away from your opinion I wonder what you were using for a system when testing the modded DIO? As stated I respect your hearing and testing ability.Just want to know what the synergy was.Don't want to mesh the wrong equiptment and get the same results.

Not that I am disatisfied with my playback system at the moment,but if I can make it better for little cost I am always intrested. At the moment I have a few projects going on trying to enhanche my system and anything that might help is appreciated.

Regards,ABEX