audioengr
Responses from audioengr
| Question about Burr Brown DACs There is no guarantee that a better chip will sound better in a particular design. A poor board layout and parts choice can easily make a better DAC sound worse than an older generation DAC. | |
| Details don't mean a thing Often detail (and high-frequency extension) comes at the expense of sibilance. I have had a number of customers that extended the frequency response of their systems, only to find that some other component or cable was causeing sibilance that was ... | |
| Purpose of triangular placement of cones/spikes? It's simply to insure that the feet or supports for the component all make contact with the shelf. If there are 4 feet and one is not making good contact, this can cause the chassis to vibrate, resonate. I think it's stupid to make these out of tu... | |
| Smooth sounding DAC? "Would you comment on why nonoversanpling DAC's suffer from diminished dynamics and softened transients."Sure. Every CDP and DAC that I have examined (a lot of them) that is non-upsampler has either:1) Filters on the analog stages that roll-off th... | |
| Interconnect to tame bright sounding CDP Why dont you just fix the sound of the CDP? Get it modded. | |
| Smooth sounding DAC? I'll quote some specifics:1) Perpetual Technologies P-3A with Turbomod - very analog-like2) Birdland Odeon-lite with mods - very close to P-3A in performanceNothing I have tried comes close to these, including Audio Aero, AN, Electrocompaniet and ... | |
| Other problems with Sony SCD1 besides TOC Read The thing is SLUG-slow.... take a coffee break. That's why I avoid it. | |
| Smooth sounding DAC? Audio Note is a good bet. Be aware that with non-upsampling DAC's, you generally get smoothness at the expense of dynamics. The AN can be modded to improve dynamics to some extent as well as HF extension and clarity.With upsamplers, you can have b... | |
| DAC's with Word Clock Input? The word clock will reduce jitter when compared to a non-clocked data stream. However, if the risetimes are slow, there will still be jitter generated at the DAC. The transmission-lines must be well-matched to prevent reflections.It will eliminate... | |
| Digital Front End: Critical Listening Two things:1) your Transport is the weakest link - get it modded2) THe ML360S is very good, but also can be better once modded | |
| Zanden DAC owners You can have a world-class transport with a good Sony DVD player, such as the DVP-S7700 (~$200 used) with mods ~$500. | |
| Best Inexpensive DAC A used Birdland Odeon-lite should be around $500 and mods for it can be had for around $700. World-class performance for $1200. | |
| severe limiting factor The CD player is the problem. If you want an excellent front-end, you should consider separate Transport and upsampling DAC, both modded. | |
| Birdland DAC Very nice DAC right out of the box, but really stellar once modded (Odeon-lite). | |
| Classe DAC-1 or Musical Fidelity A 324 The Classe DAC-1 is a fine unit, but there are much better DAC's available now for the same money, even less, including the Birdland Odeon-lite and the Perpetual Technologies (properly modded), not to mention the popular Ack dAck and the I owned a... |