calvinandhobbes
Responses from calvinandhobbes
| DENAFRIPS DAC ---- Owner Impressions, Feedback, General Discussion, Questions and more.... Your categorization of the Qutest, Yggy and Pontus aligns with my experience. I would say that the Ares has a bit more harshness than the Pontus.I'm pretty sensitive to digital glare and have avoided listening to much digital audio for the last 32... | |
| New Bluesound Node – First Impressions +1 to what @patrickdowns and @lalitk suggested for improved sound quality. The suggestions from @lalitk align with my experience as well To get the best out of Node, you need to use,1) Ethernet with decent quality LAN cable, like Supra CAT8,2) Ext... | |
| Streaming Transport without DAC- few choices I’m very satisfied with the sound of the $800 Pro-ject Stream Box Ultra S2. It’s based on a Raspberry Pi with the power supplies and analog sections optimized for low noise. It certainly sounds better than a laptop or iPhone that I used for a shor... | |
| Excellent Speakers for Classical Music - $2,000 USD Budget @dfwbach The Monitor Audio Silver 300s are just warm enough to avoid sounding harsh. To my ears, they are pretty neutral and quite revealing of upstream source components. | |
| Excellent Speakers for Classical Music - $2,000 USD Budget Monitor Audio Silver 300s have a fast, but refined sound which I find works well for acoustic music such as classical and jazz. By "fast", I mean a speaker that sounds agile and responsive. I mention "fast", because that is what I do like about el... | |
| Electrical circuit "noise" @cdnorris Thank you for sharing what your company has learned. Rejection or reduction of RFI and other forms of analog EMI seems to be the improvement that many audio products seen as "snake oil" can actually make in sound quality. The 'bits are b... | |
| Very small, warm and dynamic speakers Have you heard the Totem Model 1? Though I've not heard the Model 1, my impression of Totems from listening to different models over the years is that they are the opposite of warm sounding. Sonus Faber would definitely be warm sounding as would a... | |
| Help selecting a power cord. I’ve found that even the base Shunyata Venom V14 power cord makes a noticeable improvement over stock power cords on a DAC. I think the benefit comes from better shielding of electromagnetic interference. That could be a good starting point.FWIW, ... | |
| Old digital that still kicks butt The Linn CD12 from 1999 is one of the best sounding digital players that I can remember. I recently heard a Chord Hugo TT/MScaler which didn't sound close to being as musical as a CD12, let alone a mid-90s Marantz CD63 SE | |
| Old Amps that can still Kick Butt I'm still running a Creek 4140 integrated in my system. I thought it would be easy to get something that sounds better given that it only cost $550 in 1989, but that has not been the case. I think the reason it sounds good from the perspective of ... | |
| Strong recommend: The HiFi Podcast with Darren & Duncan What I appreciate is that they combine deep knowledge about the engineering principles behind audio equipment with a curiosity for listening to equipment to explain why it sounds that way. | |
| Shunyata Denali Damn! What led you to formerly deny any effect from power cables and what was it about the Denali that changed your mind (compared to prior experiences with power cables)? | |
| Chord DACs .. who has moved across to them from R-2R based DACs ? Here are my listening notes on the Qutest and the Pontus II: I've had a Chord Qutest in my system for the past 2 months with the intention of comparing it to the Denafrips Pontus II.Background on the Qutest as a reference point: The Qutest sounde... | |
| NORDOST vs CARDAS USB cables @edgewound I'm a fan of the Nordost Flatline speaker cables as well. They sound incredibly fast and transparent. I also got mine in the early 90s when the Flatline Gold cables were more reasonably priced because Nordost was just starting out.The o... | |
| Ethernet Cables I got an AmazonBasics Cat 6 Ethernet cable and a Supra Cat 8 cable to be able to listen to both. My plan was to sell the Supra Cat 8 cable if I didn't hear any clear improvement from the AmazonBasics cable. FWIW, I'm using the Supra Cat 8 cable no... |