yyzsantabarbara

Responses from yyzsantabarbara

Recommended amplification
If a speaker manufacturer recommends higher power, then what likely will happen with higher power is a more powerful and dynamic sound. You can get good sound with the lower power amp, but it will not be as powerful or forceful with music that cal... 
The new Coda S5.5 amplifier: It's a "Petite Beast"!
@fthompson251 The real test to see if a DAC’s volume can hang with a great preamp is to listen at low volume. The only DAC that I found could hang with a great preamp was the Lumin X1 with the Leedh volume control. Even that was not as perfect as ... 
Front Row Seat Power Cord?
@audphile1 Not under $1k but many at $2k, including 1 of my monoblock FrontRow cables. Though I may pull it since I am considering the Schitt Tyr monos.  
Speakers for low-level listening
The headphone suggestion is the best one. I work very late at night (1-2AM) and my headphones keep me going and motivated to stay up. I usually start the phones around 9PM. I can recommend 3 headphones that are top if the heap. A few days ago, I ... 
Front Row Seat Power Cord?
@laginz You may want to look into some relatively low-cost used FrontRow speaker cables.  The used cables have dropped in price recently. I personally feel the speaker cable is the most important cable. Or has the most audible difference in my sy... 
Front Row Seat Power Cord?
Audience FrontRow  
Downsizing from tower to bookshelf
I downsized from a 12 x 11 x 9 to even a smaller room. I had the ($1000) Magnepan LRS+ in the bigger room and it was really good. It lacked some details that I was used to in other speakers, but overall, the presentation was so impressive. In my ... 
Discerning a difference between streamers is difficult...only me or common for all?
One interesting thing I found in my quest to lower the cost of my gear was that my worst DAC, the Benchmark DAC3B sounds better with the $10 USB cable from Benchmark. I use the DAC3B a lot with a tube headphone amp. It sounds great.  
Discerning a difference between streamers is difficult...only me or common for all?
I had 3 streamers in the house at the same time: Playback Designs STREAM-IF (used only SPDIF not the fibre) Sonore OpticalRendu Lumin X1 They all sounded different, and all sounded great. The fact that the STREAM-IF, using SPDIF, was compar... 
Benchmark AHB2 Experiments
The AHB2 is better in stereo over mono by a tiny bit, though Benchmark says otherwise. That is if your speakers are good with 100 watts. This especially true if your speakers drop to the 2Ohm range. Then the stereo sounds better than mono to my ea... 
Open baffle speakers
@coltrane1 I have read posts with people talking about Don Sachs, Decware, Dennis Had, et al. I never paid too much attention since they did not work for my power-hungry speakers, Magnepan Mini and Yamaha NS5000. However, now with the open baffle ... 
Open baffle speakers
@coltrane1 the one I am getting is still not released but I heard it with a Felix Envy 8-watts (maybe less) headphone amp. Only issue for me is that I will take a slight hit in the quality of amplification for the speaker that currently is driven ... 
B&W 705s3 vs Kef Meta R3
KEF has a lot of detail. More than most speakers and something some have said as being a negative on the KEF lineup. Though not as detailed as Beryllium or Zylon cone drivers that I have heard. My old KEF LS50 META was more detailed than the Magn... 
300B Tube Amps with 15/16 Watts Per Channel?
My friend is building speakers that can run on 1-watt. I was asking him what 300B amp (preferably mono) he would recommend. He came up with this and said it is easy to mod it to make it sound even better. DECWARE | Audiophile Tube amplifiers &... 
Advice for headphone amp and dac
I have maybe the best headphone in the world today at my home for a home demo. It is very expensive ($10k), so I am selling the very best headphone amp for it to essentially trade the amp for the phone. I cannot listen to an amp but can listen to ...