verdantaudio
Responses from verdantaudio
| Luxman L505uXii or Hegel H390 Depends on your speakers and your taste. Both are excellent products but can't suggest one without knowing more. | |
| Looking for a change. So....looking at your gear, I would not say that the yamaha is inherently the weak link. Yamaha makes decent integrated amps and compared to your other equipment is not out of line. It is a $4K integrated. I would suggest Hegel as an option. It i... | |
| Looking to replace a CD transport... You may be able to find a used Jay's in that price range or a little above. Depending on condition, you should be able to get them for $1400 to $1800 with the MK3 upgrade. But you will need to wait. The Cyrus transport is wonderful assuming yo... | |
| Mconnect and Bricasti A NAS or dedicated server will do the trick running UPnP software. My experience is that the server/player approach sounds better than solo streamers. It is more complex and tends to cost more but if sound quality is your priority, best solution... | |
| Mconnect and Bricasti The network card on the Bricasti is a renderer/player, not a streamer. You need to be running UPnP/DLNA software on your network for it to talk to. It does look like BubbleUPnP may be your best option as it does have Qobuz integration unlike JRive... | |
| Is an unbalanced preamp a bad thing? It depends. If the balance of your gear is fully differentially balanced then you will typically find some degradation in sound quality if you use the single ended inputs and outputs. Examples of this where it really makes a difference are brand... | |
| DAC Shootout Starts This Weekend I have not had a chance to compare The Edelweiss to the Dream DAC. The guys at Playback and the US distributor may be the only ones who have at this point. My US distributor said that he found the Edelweiss DAC alone (MPD-6) approached the sound ... | |
| DAC Shootout Starts This Weekend The second is a comparable evaluation of the Playback Designs Edelweiss. First thing I did was go back and do a careful read of the notes on the Wavedream Signature which is my benchmark in terms of soundstage. Everything about this suggests... | |
| DAC Shootout Starts This Weekend Two new entries. The first is an update on the Audiobyte HydraVox with the addition of the HUB. One of the very first units we tested was the Audiobyte. For many months people have been waiting on the addition of the HUB. This completes the st... | |
| Audiobyte HUB Arrived to Complete the Vox/Zap/Hub Stack I have been doing some extensive listening to the HUB. My feeling is that it makes the HydraVox a better sounding DAC. On what was already a very detailed and resolving DAC, I am not sure how much more resolution the HUB delivers. Where it is r... | |
| Playback Edelweiss in the house So I have been doing some critical listening and I can say that this DAC is stunning. I have tried four different amps, three different pairs of speakers, several cables and two different server. Both as preamp and source. Every scenario has th... | |
| Which DACs are known to be sweet/rich/relaxed? That is correct. The Oladra or K50 have two computers in one box (with separate power supplies) along with an elite clock. My understanding is the Pink Faun Ultra is very, very good but their top performer is a "double ultra" which is $47K whi... | |
| Which DACs are known to be sweet/rich/relaxed? You are absolutely correct. Move to a DAC that is not Roon Ready and using Nucleus as renderer and player might actually deliver a regression in sound with the upgraded DAC. These are the best players I have heard in descending order in terms of... | |
| Which DACs are known to be sweet/rich/relaxed? I like the build quality of Aries Cerat better. I have liked the sound of systems with Aries Cerat DACs in them better than when I have heard the Lampizator. That said, I personally have never done a compare of the two in the same system. Regardi... | |
| Which DACs are known to be sweet/rich/relaxed? My experience is that if you use a Nucleus or Nucleus+ as server & player, it tends to be mediocre. Just as a server (which I assume is what you are doing with Mola Mola), it performs at a very high level. The issue is the processor is too p... |