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vmps, art d/io, & boldercables.com

as many know, i am fond of vmps, & the art di/o dac. well, the vmps rm-40 has won a "best in show" award at the recent ces. and, here's a quote from vmps' brian cheney to wayne, of boldercables.com, who supplied brian w/a modded di/o. wayne charges $200 for these mods to the ~$130 di/o, & having done most all the mods to *my* di/o, i can easily say it's a most fair price! ;~) anyway, here's what brian had to say to wayne:

"...We used the DIO as our digital source throughtout the Show, since we thought the Sig 9 Muse player loaned to us did not sound as good. My transport was my own 10 year old Krell MD 10."

just thought y'all might want to know... :>)

doug s.

sedond

Showing 3 responses by plato

plato
1,543 posts
 
Doug,

I just received my ART DI/O back from being modified by Wayne of Bolder Cable Co., and will be trying it in my system shortly. After seeing the list of mods he performs for that $200 price I have to agree that it's a very sweet deal indeed. I'll be putting mine up against a ModWright P-3A with level 1 mods. However, I have some other issues to nail down in my system before I can make a fair comparison.

I thought that the DI/0 held its own against the P-3A before the mods when driven by the Perpetual Tech P-1A (upsampled to 24/96) and using the Monolithic P3 power supply. So this comparison should be interesting. As you know, the DI/O does not perform upsampling on its own (the P-3A upsamples). I understand that Bolder Cable Co. will also be offering a heavy-duty power supply for the DI/O at a very reasonable price.
plato
1,543 posts
 
I unpacked my freshly modified DI/O today and saw that Wayne returned all my old parts in a zip-lock bag. He replaces a lot more parts than I even realized -- IC chips, a lot of electrolytic caps, resistors, diodes, and the cheapo RCA jacks (digital & analog). I am impressed with the amount of work he did. All those parts together don't look like they'd physically fit inside the tiny DAC!

I'll have to get this little beast back in my system; possibly on Thursday, but definitely by the weekend!
plato
1,543 posts
 
Well, well, well:

I've been listening to my DI/O all morning, freshly modified by Bolder Cable Company and I have to say that I am floored by how good this DAC sounds. There is no question in my mind that it easily outmaneuvers my ModWright/Perpetual Tech P-3A. I am amazed at the purity of the treble, its delicacy, and fine focus. The bass also surprised me. It has clearly the most natural and detailed bottom end that I've heard from any DAC in my system. And the midrange is less opaque and oh-so-transparent. The DI/O, with Wayne's mods is clearly a winner -- and the thing is not even broken in.

I heard so much more detail from almost every cut in Fionna Apple's "When the Pawn" CD, that although I have played this recording countless times, it was almost like I was hearing it for the first time. A drum/percussion passage toward the end of her song "Limp" amazed me by how dynamic and true to life it was (very high slam factor). Later I put on the "O Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack and almost jumped out of my skin at the start of "Po Lazarus" because the sound of the prisoners cracking rocks in the opening was THAT STARTLING!

Happy Listening!
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