2. digital
  3. 174349-26252

What direction should I go

My system is as follows:

Magico S5 MKII
Pass Labs x250

Plinius CD-LAD mkII

Primare D30.2
Moon Audio Moon LP-5.3
VPI Industries Scout

As you can see I have no streaming capabilities. I have been reading a lot here but I am still unsure what to do. I was thinking that I would get a separate DAC and streamer. I would run the Primare digital out into the new DAC ( expecting a big improvement ) as well as connecting the streamer and hard drive so I would need SPDIF and USB connections. If I have ~$13k what direction would you guys go? I also thought about the Esoteric N-05XD to use as a pre as well as the all in one DAC/Streamer and still run the Primare through it. This would allow me to sell my current pre to help a little with the costs. This direction would also allow me to remove one shelf in my rack and save money on not having to buy additional cables.

If I had to be on one side of neutral I would go the more revealing, cooler, side of things. I listen to a wide range of music from Classical to Jazz to Rock to Metal ( and a lot of the subgenres that aren't "hifi" ). I am looking for a deep wide soundstage with no loss in the bottom end and airy highs.

For a time I thought about getting a new CD player that has digital inputs ( mine does not ) and add the streamer and hard drive to it. Based on reading I think perhaps that is not the best approach but I am not opposed to that either.

I have some somewhat local dealers to me that include brands like Aurender, Bricasti, MSB, Esoteric, Chord, Innuos, Mytek, Nagra, Berkely Audio Design. I am open to any recommendations outside of these also it is just I would prefer to demo them. But if it is used I would consider it as I could sell if it didn't fit my system.

 

oside_e

Showing 1 response by holmz

holmz's avatar
holmz
2,328 posts
 

Waiting for @jasonbourne52 to appear and tell you all you need is a 100.00 DAC connected to a 50.00 DVD player....

To be fair, an iPad with a dongle into some RCAs, is what I often use to check the system.
If one doesn’t like that, then it is not certain that they would line other higher $ digital approaches over the VPI scout sound.

The rest of the gear is nice.

 

You will need:

fast Internet, a nice power supply for your router, a fancy ethernet cable from your router to your system, a fancy ethernet switch (English electric switch 8) , a fancy ethernet cable from the switch to your server (wolf audio systems luna r or better), a fancy usb cable from your server to your dac (t+a dac8dsd or better) , nice powercord for your dac, and xlr to your preamp. Also youll need a roon subscription and a Qobuz subscription.

At 44k, and 2 channels at 24 bits, it becomes around 2 Mbits. One does not need gigabit ethernet for the low bandwidth of audio.

 

For a time I thought about getting a new CD player that has digital inputs ( mine does not ) and add the streamer and hard drive to it. Based on reading I think perhaps that is not the best approach but I am not opposed to that either.

It may be a good approach.
One can run Roon on a NUC, or use some other embedded Roon player, etc…
But one can also run that type of setup into a DAC, and then into the preamp.

I would not push it out of the solution space just yet.

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