daverz
Responses from daverz
| "Best" DAC for a grand or less Certainly the Benchmark is not the only DAC that measures flat or that has super-low distortion. I'm sure that most of the DACs already mentioned measure well. | |
| Advice on a turntable for a clean midlevel system If £2500 is midlevel, I'm going to recommend the table I own myself, the Michell Gyro SE. You can often find it packaged with their Technoarm. | |
| Vandersteen 5A Speakers I believe the minimum listening distance for the 5a is 8 feet from the plane of the speakers (judging by the tilt chart in the 5a manual.) So it might be pretty tight fit in that room.My preference would be for long wall placement (to put the spea... | |
| listening in the dark? I enjoy listening in the dark. The less visual distraction the better. And this is why I find it annoying that so many designers put bright blue LEDs in their equipment. | |
| "Best" DAC for a grand or less I had a Benchmark home for a few weeks (the HDR version, so a pretty recent model). Maybe it's the accuracy that I couldn't take. I found it too lean and the highs somewhat dry and -- for want of a better term -- squeaky. (I can hear Jack Nicholso... | |
| DACs as preamps: Benchmark HDR vs Wyred4Sound DAC2 I also had a Benchmark HDR for a couple weeks. As a DAC, I was impressed by the purity of its midrange, but it was leaner sounding that I like, and the top, while very extended, was sort of squeaky sounding. The Benchmark is so widely respected an... | |
| Any tube rec's on Vandersteen 5's There's a pair of Rogue M-150 monoblocks on the 'gon right now for $2400. These are a fabulous combo with the Quatros, and I'm sure they'd be just as good with the 5s. | |
| Longer XLR Runs I'm using 25' (7.6m) XLR calbes with excellent results. They are Bluejeans cables (Belden 1800F with Neutrik connectors.) | |
| Vandersteen 3A sig , on the naked There's an interesting Q&A on this on the Vandersteen website (yes, Richard replies in all caps):Alan (2/12/11): I have owned four pairs of Vandersteen loudspeakers over the past 21 years. If you could find a way to design your speakers with u... | |
| stupid question about sources, amps, and loudness I missed the part about the jumpers on the pre-amp. That's a thoughtful feature. Dgaylin, are you sure about the sound degradation? Make sure you are matching levels when you compare before and after. | |
| stupid question about sources, amps, and loudness One thing about tube amps is that you'll typically get about 3dB less gain from the 4 Ohm taps.Looking for a low gain amp seems like an awkward way of solving this problem. I would suggest trying attenuators first. | |
| stupid question about sources, amps, and loudness Yes, input sensitivity of the amp. So your amps would have a gain of20*log10(sqrt(100*8)/1.2) = 27.4 dBWhich is on the moderate side.It would be nice if more amps had switchable gain like some Brystons or variable gain like the Parasound amps. | |
| stupid question about sources, amps, and loudness The gain is probably the better number to pay attention to because it is not relative the the power rating of the amp.If only the power rating and the sensitivity is given, gain in dB is related to the power rating (at 8 Ohms) and the sensitivity ... | |
| How far apart do you position your speakers ? Thanks, Hornguys, for the explanation. I guess my speakers are harmonically convergent at my current 95% position. | |
| How far apart do you position your speakers ? My room is too irregular in shape for any geometric speaker placement method to work, though the irregularity may also work to break up modes. |