tk21
Responses from tk21
| To preamp or not to preamp. That is the question. I am fully aware of the limitations of the DAC in the Node 2i as agd 101 pointed out. It's serviceable but not great. I have a Node 2i (although it hasn't been plugged in for a while.) Seems to me, its weakness isn't so much its DAC as its pre... | |
| Streamer/DAC - Where is the value? Of the products the OP is considering, in the $4K-$6K range, volume control (preamp functions) may have a bigger impact on SQ than the DAC, and an even bigger impact than the streaming functions. A couple of Chinese companies (Lumin and Matrix Au... | |
| Cost break down of hifi system I think of cables/interconnects as a more-or-less fixed cost, not as a percentage of the total system cost. Blue Jeans Cables sells Canare 4S11 speaker cables, terminated with locking bananas, for $5.90/foot. This might be 10% of a starter syste... | |
| Active Speakers Better? No, per Michael Borresen I don't understand why either design, active or passive, should be inherently better than the other (w.r.t. sound quality.) .My floor-standers are offered in both passive and active designs. I chose passive. I did not want almost all the system eg... | |
| Streaming Streaming can bring you, via the internet, virtually all the music in the world (as long as it's been digitized and made public). This in my opinion is its biggest advantage. Opinions vary about its sound quality compared to analog (vinyl, RTR). ... | |
| Here comes the PS Audio's streamer -- anyone excited? I'm glad to see a reputable American company introduce something like this. Many good loudspeakers and amps are made in USA, but when it comes to streamers (or streaming DACs/preamps), most of the best products seem to be Asian, European, or Cana... | |
| What Neutral Means in Reviews & Our Discussions? Are We Confusing Tame/Flat For Neutral? To me, "neutral" refers to a flat frequency response. If you start with neutral equipment in a good room, but want to emphasize certain features (like bass), chances are you can do it with DSP, an equalizer, or a subwoofer. The opposite (taming a... | |
| BluSound Node and Node 2 The Lumin D2 retails for nearly 4x the price of a new Node. You could spend 10x the price and the product still would not be immune to software/firmware bugs. Sometimes the solution to software or operational issues is available from the customer... | |
| Dedicated NUC/Nucleaus vs shared PC (w Fiber Media Converter connected to Endpoint) I have both a dedicated music server (the sonicTransporter i9) and a Mac Mini in my HiFi system. When I started with Roon, I ran the Core on the Mac Mini. Since buying the sTi9, I've been running Roon Core on it and using the Mini for DSP software... | |
| Power cable for Bryston Check out the Tripp Lite power cords on Amazon for about $2 - $3 per foot. | |
| Suggestion for $10K soup to nuts digital? Does "soup to nuts" not include loudspeakers? Power amp? *Only* the DAC + streamer, with or without preamp functions? Some of the above suggestions (such as the Lumin P1) could cost $10K for the streamer/DAC/preamp alone. The Lumin P1 is a gr... | |
| Recommendation for low to normal level listening a 13.5' x 21' x 8' room As an alternative to the Majestic 845 or Magnepans, check out the Janszen Valentina P8. This is a hybrid electrostatic speaker. Probably hard to find used, but pricing for new speakers does start at under your $10K limit. Made in Ohio, sold direc... | |
| Rant against the industry with hopes for discussion on positive change Sometimes I wish Apple would buy out Roon, Benchmark, and KEF (or some such trio of software, electronics, and speaker developers.) Then come up with a HiFi ecosystem that integrates everything at several reasonable price points for the whole sh... | |
| Sound quality of Roon Somebody suggested that Roon sounds like the systems it's implemented with. That sounds about right. If anyone tells you Roon does not sound good, try to find out how they're implementing it. Not just the electronic components, but also the con... | |
| Looking for a preamp with XLR connections FWIW, the Benchmark preamps get excellent ASR reviews, have no tubes, have XLR inputs/outputs, and cost far less than $10K. So they seem to match the OP's criteria well. In case you don't trust ASR, IIRC other reviews have been very positive as w... |