sfar
Responses from sfar
| DAC with XLR Digital Input I'm very pleased with my Bel Canto DAC3. It was $2,400 new but they're available for less than $1K. I don't use the XLR input, I got it because it has two coax inputs and either fixed or variable output, meaning it can be used as a preamp. The bui... | |
| Floor protection from spikes When you get the Sorbothane pads put a layer of plastic wrap or something similar between the pads and the wood floor. The black pigment in the pads will leach into the wood and leave a permanent stain. That was an expensive lesson for me. | |
| Adding storage to a MacBook Pro If you're even reasonably handy you can upgrade the internal drive on any Mac using the instructional videos and tools from https://www.ifixit.com/The videos at https://www.crucial.com/usa/en/support-ssd-mac are also excellent.Another source for u... | |
| Moon by Simaudio, Arcam and Hegel: Quality of Customer and Technical Phone Support I can’t speak to Hegel or Arcam integrateds but I’ve owned three Simaudio integrateds, two DACs and a CD player. All sounded great, worked flawlessly and were a joy to use. The build quality and ergonomics were better than the Arcam CD player I ow... | |
| What are your top three live concerts of all time? @lenmc2964 - I was at that same 1972 Rolling Stones concert in Ft. Worth. The Stones were great, of course, but the thing I remember best was Stevie Wonder's first appearance as Stevie Wonder instead of Little Stevie Wonder. I thought he came clos... | |
| Slight hum from SLI-80 power amp The first test I would do is to one at a time swap the matching pairs of tubes left to right and see if that switch moves the hum. | |
| Whats the popular brand, most musical, digital cable now? What format? One more thing, Macbooks from 2016 and later don't have digital output at the headphone jack, the only digital output from them is via USB. | |
| Where is the AC fuse located on the SLI-80 I didn't mean to imply that a surge protector might not be useful, it might protect your equipment when the power comes back on after a power outage. | |
| Whats the popular brand, most musical, digital cable now? What format? The audio output port on a Macbook is a combination analog and digital output. You can plug a stereo-mini analog cable into it to get output for headphones or to go to the analog input of some other amplifier. To use it as a digital output you wou... | |
| Where is the AC fuse located on the SLI-80 millercarbon is correct. A lightning bolt with the power to jump 10,000 feet from a cloud to the ground is not going to be impressed with your UPS/surge protector. Unplug your gear and anything electrically connected to it when you hear thunder. | |
| Are you Beethoven or Mozart? Bach | |
| Best integrated tube amplifier, under $3,000.00. No phono needed. Could be used, too.d I don't claim to completely understand the relationship between speaker sensitivity and amp output power but there are some observations on that in this review of the Raven Audio Nighthawk III driving Dynaudio Special 40s which are rated at 85dB, ... | |
| Best integrated tube amplifier, under $3,000.00. No phono needed. Could be used, too.d I’ve owned the Rogue Cronus, Cary Sli-80, AES/Cary AE-25, Cayin A-50T and now the Raven Audio Blackhawk LE.The Raven is by far my favorite, a realistic, immersive sound that gets completely out of the way of the music. The service from the head of... | |
| Music Server or Laptop? A simple but very good solution, if you can find one, is the Arcam rPlay. It's been discontinued but available on ebay and other places. I have one plugged into my router that works extremely well taking streaming from an iTunes database on an iMa... | |
| Fear of Streaming I sense you've already figured this out but the pleasure of your LP ritual and the pleasure of having forgotten or entirely new music at your fingertips aren't mutually exclusive. Why not have and enjoy both? |