drbarney1
Responses from drbarney1
| The Rapid Rise (& Fall) of the CD DACs have improved till, for single-ended use, there is a new Sabre chip ESS9038 outclasses far more expensive and difficult to get accurate ladder DACs. I still use mostly discs: CDs and 5-channel SACDs, but I have some downloaded copies of symph... | |
| Watts! How many do we need? I like the simplicity and purity of the SET. But I also prefer inefficient planar magnetic speakers (Magnepan 0.7 which is all quasi-ribbon because pure ribbons are too fragile). I let a globe 45 SET transformer couple to an 833A run at 1000 Volts... | |
| Would you move to a bigger house if you could just to have a better listening room ? I would never give up my 26-foot diameter Futuro house because its design is so futuristic that it looks like it is from a far more advanced planet. It is big enough for Magnepan 0.7's and bigger Magnepans use pure ribbon tweeters that are more fr... | |
| The Horror Try comparing what you hear to a live performance in a concert hall or an opera house. You may find it closer to your system than many more expensive systems. I heard $50 K speakers that sounded more like an outdoor amplified festival than acous... | |
| Marantz SA10 sacd player I have a limited collection of 5-channel SACDs and an old OPPO player which has been repaired by OPPO. I have been to live performances of concerts where some of the orchestra, or one singer, is in the balcony above and behind the ground-level sea... | |
| Re: streaming recommendations for newbie I use a separate DAC which uses the new ESS9032Q2M which for single ended use with the SET preamp and amp, outperforms R2R ladder DACs. (Some reviewers consider the more expensive R2R ladder DAC better for balanced output.) I purchased a Bluesou... | |
| Comparison of sonic qualities of some tonearms A 9" pivoted tonearm using the Lofgrin A pivot to stylus distance and a 30-degree offset has a tracking error less than 2% and this causes second order harmonic distortion far below that of a SET amplifier, which is inaudible. Good luck mounting a... | |
| Yes, cables do make a difference -- regardless of price... Be suspicious of wildly expensive cables. You can't spend $20,000 to manufacture speaker cables. Watch out for junk science claims which include the attenuation of treble in speaker cables due to skin effect. The difference is about 1/100 dB for t... | |
| Anyone has a reference system where amplification is SS ? It is easy to build your own tube amplifier and if you use premium parts, the most you will spend will be a few hundred dollars for the same design that costs five figures. Learning how to design one from a book such as Beginner's Guide to Tube Au... | |
| "The Ultra High-End Speaker." I admit up front that I do not consider myself a true audiophile. The extreme sensitivity of audiophiles to differences to subtle for me to notice does not justify my wishing to have speakers costing six figures. The music's emotional content and ... | |
| Discuss The Viv Lab Rigid Arm I had wanted to circumvent the need for anti-skating in a tonearm, but the approach of a Viv, which promises this, makes the "cure" only worse. Thank you for the history of the research on this. | |
| WHY CABLES MATTER! I tend towards the skeptical because there have been faulty physics claims in advertising of cables and famous cable designers in ads show no physics or engineering training at the graduate level. Here are three examples of a little knowledge is a... | |
| Why is solid state more popular when tubes are better? If a transistor goes bad, you have to take it to a technician to isolate it and to replace it. This added expense is likely to exceed replacing most tubes. Tube circuits are so simple that you can check the resistors and capacitors (for shorts) an... | |
| Immersive Audio and How to Achieve It I am skeptical of the value of having a sweet spot so minuscule that you cannot have more than one person enjoy a system. If only one seat lets the system sound right, you might as well use headphones and save on speakers. There is another limit... | |
| If the DAC is the same, how different do CD transports sound? If a DAC is good enough, it buffers by storing bits and releases them in a precise enough clock, the bits just before conversion should correct inaccuracies in most transports. It becomes hard to hear the difference between the transport and a fil... |