oxia
Responses from oxia
| Digital Amps - Your opinions and why so few? I'll second what Ramy said about the Acoustic Reality eAR amplifier. I hate to use adjectives like "analog" or "un-digital" to describe its sound because I don't believe in these terms. But I will say that it sounds "right" and "natural", and that... | |
| Riddle me this: how is carbon a conductor? Man, this thread has really taken off!Tbg, from their website it's evident that the Wolff ICs uses carbon and silver. Presumably they don't use a pure carbon shield/return (for low shield resistance) and and therefore can get away with longer leng... | |
| Riddle me this: how is carbon a conductor? van den Hul has used carbon and carbon-metal hybrid conductors for years. With respect to its application in ICs, the high resistance is of little consequence since you are dealing with low current. On the upside, carbon is RF transparent, will no... | |
| Poor man's reference DAC I'm amazed that nobody has yet mentioned the Museatex DACs (Bidat, idat44, Bitstream). They rarely show up for sale, and when they do, they go very quickly. Bidat's used to appear for < $1K, but recently one sold for $3K in just one day. Then a... | |
| directional arrows on interconnects To Rcrump and Ridgestreetaudio,Thanks Bob and Robert. I'm glad to see that you both employ a methodology for determining and labelling directionality on your cables. Despite my personal beliefs as an objectivist, I am certainly not militant about ... | |
| directional arrows on interconnects To RcrumpPS: Thanks also for the tip regarding stage height. I'll have to go back and try it. The funny thing about this hobby is that despite my rationalist, objectivist leanings, in the end it tends to go out the window and I will try almost any... | |
| directional arrows on interconnects Hi Bob,Actually, in the past I have tried listening to analogue cables plugged in both ways. It's this kind of behavior that makes my non-audiophile friends question my sanity :) In some rare cases (like some van den Hul cables that were shielded ... | |
| directional arrows on interconnects On some shielded designs you will see directional arrows which corresponds to fact that the shield is connected only at one end. In this way, the sheild is not responsible for carrying the return signal, hence it functions as a true shield. The di... | |
| Digital cables for DAC I just switched from a Stereovox HDXV to a Sonicwave glass Toslink, and the improvement was staggering. Overall, I've found the Sonicwave to have more air and real high-frequency detail, better detail throughout the audio band, better bass articul... | |
| Warm sounding cables - non fatiguing van den Hul "The Second" -- the most coherent, tonally natural, and non-fatiguing IC I've yet come across. It may lack some "jump factor" (or what I call "pizzaz") compared to other cables (most notably, those of the silver variety), but after ext... | |
| Whats wrong with short cables? Sean, Are zobels necessary for Goertz even if your amps are equipped with zobels? I thought that having zobels on both the amps and the speaker terminals could be detrimental to the sound.Thanks | |
| Interconnect under $200 new or used..... I highly recommend van den Hul "The Second", which after much trial and error, has become my cable reference for tonal neutrality. I find it works best when used between CD and preamp, which I speculate is due to the radio-transparent nature of ca... | |
| WBT Spades -- Crimping needed?? Uwloian,You've gotten lots of good advice regarding the need for crimp sleeves when installing the WBT spades. However, it's not necessary to use the "special" WBT crimp tool. I've installed these spades myself using a standard wire stripper/cutte... | |
| Is solid state on the brink of extinction? Thsalmon,I think when Muralman1 is referring to digital vs solid state, hes referring to digital switching amps compared to linear SS amps. Youre correct to point out that not all digital amps can accept a digital input signal, and that swit... | |
| Best Digital Amps Fiddler,I see your point, but I think you've missed mine. I don't doubt that there will be design improvements in the future for even the most accomplished of components. After all, the "best" never sit on their laurels. And I'm also aware of the ... |