antigrunge2

Responses from antigrunge2

Interesting discovery when my carpets were cleaned yesterday!
Symposium Svelte Shelf is your solution. Completely decouples speaker from floor resonances 
Downside to R2R Ladder DACs?
At therisk of being contentious: Aggressive treble is more a sign of poor clocking than a design fault of delta sigma dacs compared to r2r dacs. Even highend dacs benefit from reclocking with Mutec, Cybershaft, Antelope, sotm et al. There is no su... 
Equipment that has made you 'stop' looking?
Wavac EC300b. The final stop in SET purity. ZYX Universe low output cartridge. Dynavector Dv507 tonearm. Acoustic Revive RGC-24 grounding device 
Up-sampling inside the DAC
I own a antelope Audio Zodiac Platinum which allows for a direct comparison between upsampled and non-upsampled output. Upsampling leads to markedly superior results in terms of texture, decay on cimbals as well as sheer clarity of soundstage and ... 
Setting up a Mac mini as a music server, and other digital music questions
Get a proper server: I changed from a tricked out Mac Mini (mach2music) to an Innuos Zenith Mk3 and there is no comparison. The Mini suffers from too much noise and vibration everywhere and all the tweaks (isolation platform, LPS et al) can’t do e... 
Convert USB to SPDIF
Schiit Eitr. Add an Acoustic Revive REM-8 to clean up the AC noise and the quality is superb 
USB cables and Galvanic Isolation
See the ‘USB sucks’ thread: USB generates an unpredictable set of outcomes depending on the implementation of USB ports of the server and DAC, the quality of the cable and the DAC’s clock as well as the noise environment in the specific setup. As ... 
Looking for a phono preamp that has volume control
Look at the Aqvox2CI. It has a balanced design all the way to the Cartridge and thereby provides the lowest hum and noise I have ever experienced.  
Transports
Transports arguably at the moment are the components with the fastest technological change. This applies especially if you are planning a USB connection to the DAC 
How important are transports?
In asynchronous USB the transport is slaved to the clock of the DAC. The clock is all-important as good clocking is the only viable antidote for jitter. Nevertheless the quality of the USB implementation of the transport as well as of the DAC are ... 
Innuos Zenith Mk3 vs Zen Mk3 + Phoenix
@ianderson While I agree with your tolerant conclusion, I‘d like to understand the impact of tuning on resultant overtones a bit better: good musicians build harmonies with a keen awareness on matching overtones and depending which string you use ... 
Turntable placement and isolation
No amount of insulation will compensate for springy floor boards. Conversely there are any number of solid wall mounted racks that would solve your problem comprehensively. 
Innuos Zenith Mk3 vs Zen Mk3 + Phoenix
@ianderson I really have a problem with the a=432 transposition: it‘s not what the musicians heard when they played the music and as such has no business in a high fidelity setup. Either a marketing gimmick or engineers not understanding musicans. 
Innuos Zenith Mk3 vs Zen Mk3 + Phoenix
@ianderson I went with a cheap chinese clock found on Alibaba to try out what improvement it would make to my Antelope Zodiac Platinum DAC driven by the Innuos Zenith Mk3 via an Intona Isolator. The resulting improvement for shelling out $100 is e... 
Innuos Zenith Mk3 vs Zen Mk3 + Phoenix
The Phoenix reclocker is a half way house. Asynchronous USB puts the DAC‘s clock in charge of clocking the transport/server. Rather than spending money on a reclocker one should spend the money on getting the best DAC clock possible, ideally a 10M...