geardaddie

Responses from geardaddie

The Sacred Ritual of Vinyl: A Return to Mindful Listening
Such a thoughtful post and great followups. Don't have much to add except that I completely agree about the ritual contributing to the engagement of vinyl. My vinyl and digital sources are very close in quality. Neither one will guarantee the best... 
The new dCS Varese DAC...it is so good that all others are now relegated to history??
@daveyf Ja, you are right. I meant to say the very best vinyl pressings that were comparable (albeit differently presented) in audio quality to Varese. Tape is such a unique beast and hard to compare to anything else as the instrument separation o... 
The new dCS Varese DAC...it is so good that all others are now relegated to history??
I've heard Varese at a local dealer and also in two home systems that I know well. The dealer had a Vivaldi stack available to AB with and the two home systems had other top shelf sources to compare the Varese with (tape and/or vinyl). Although wa... 
dCS Mosaic Vs Roon Nucleus Plus - Titan
I haven’t tried the new Titan model, but comparing the Roon Nucleus vs the Mosiac app I think the Mosiac app is slightly better. Quieter, with a more natural tone. However, I have closed the gap a bit by using an Innuous switch feeding the nucleus... 
Innous phoenix usb re-clocker or Phoenix ethernet switch
Haven’t done a direct comparison of the two, but the Phoenix Ethernet is an awesome upgrade. Not cheap, but also quite worth it if the rest of the system is up to par. I previously used an EtherRegen with LPS but the Phoenix provides a much more r... 
Transparrent Ref XL vs Opus
I have a similar system as yours (just a step lower) and did the change from Ref xl to Opus throughout the system. The speaker cable change from Ref 160 to original Alexx speakers was substantial and the most costly. The biggest bang for the buck ...