ghdprentice
Responses from ghdprentice
| DAC suggestions In your price range Schiit Yggdrasil. For the money an outstanding deal. Recently got a Gungnir as research and bought a Yggdrasil for a friend. | |
| Recommendations for HiFi Listening Room I also like wildly different music types and after years of attending the symphony and other acoustic venues found that Sonus Faber speakers best reproduced natural - musical sound, improved all genera (as opposed to making one genera sound better... | |
| Where to invest the most in the "digital chain"? OP, This is the problem with an open forum like this. You are going to get lots of contradictory posts based on people with different values and limited experience. You have to look at each and make a judgement on the posters values and experienc... | |
| What are/were the best sounding cheap components you have ever had? You know. I saw this thread a while ago. Unless I can think of a way to add value… I tend to just follow it and not comment. After some thought… my answer is never. I have never had a cheap component that sounded great, I have had cost effecti... | |
| What is the best tonearm for a SOTA Nova turntable? I don’t think it will cost you a fortune. I would do the table upgrades. Then see where you are… a used Audio Research PH8 would really upgrade your analog end. I would imagine that would be around $8K. Then if it isn’t there a cartridge for $3K. | |
| Recommendations for HiFi Listening Room I have to recommend extensive auditioning of systems from different high end dealers. You want to find the sound you are really emotionally drawn to. It is ok to audition really expensive equipment… to find “the sound” you guys like. Include tube ... | |
| Streamer? Aurender's "caching streaming" ? how important is this feature? I highly recommend Aurender for their excellent sound quality for the money. That is all they do is streaming. I own two after a very exhaustive search. | |
| Disservice: XLR interconnects OP, Yes, USB cables make a difference… and it can be very large. Erase the 0 and 1 theory. It will point you in the wrong direction in audio every time. Everything matters and sometimes it seems the more counterintuitive the bigger the differe... | |
| What is the added value of a streamer over a networked dedicated Computer Yes. A high quality stand alone streamer will provide very large sonic improvements. I experimented for years with PCs and my Mac laptop… running on battery with most software shut down, with files in different places. Then I got my first ... | |
| Where to invest the most in the "digital chain"? The key to streamers is that they isolate vibration, electrical noise… etc. the signal sent to the DAC is incredibly important. They make a huge difference. Keeping the DAC and streamer separate (as long as they are both high quality) also makes a... | |
| Best software to rip CDs to Mac (Mini) You have what looks like a great system. I wouldn’t bother with ripping CDs any more. That was, oh so 10 years ago. I would get your streaming up to the rest of your system. Since my streaming in my headphone and main systems have been of great (e... | |
| Where to invest the most in the "digital chain"? Over the decades it has been proven over and over to me through experience that every part of the digital path is critical… and the more logically something shouldn’t matter, the more it does. Of course, I didn’t learn this. I just couldn’t get m... | |
| Advice for Streaming Newbies - Best Bang for Our Bucks If you are after outstanding sound quality then the key is a high quality streamer and high quality DAC. You can take inexpensive equipment and incrementally improve performance, but if you want real performance you want a carefully chosen streame... | |
| Aurender N200 @marco1 / OP, Yep. I got an Aurender N100 for my headphone system… which resulted in me getting my W20SE for my main sister. | |
| WILL IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE? My experience over the last fifty years has been a slow nearly inpercetible move towards tubes. First to an Audio Research tube preamp, then an Audio Research tubed phono stage, then ARC tubed amp… and finally an ARC tubed DAC. Each step added mu... |