The arena is getting a bit cluttered with DACs capable of doing, good playback. As is. Another one on the block caught my eye recently, by MSB ... how well does it do? Found a recent clip of a capture of the sound,
Yep. Doing the Big Sound thing nicely, no complaints ...
Actually, continuing a blog category started in Audiophilestyle.com ... forum, etc, conversations about areas of audio that I find relevant, or worth considering.
This one, https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/tweaks-cables-and-filtration-essential-for-world-class-stereo-performance.40160/ is a goody, asking whether owners of ambitious rigs have used various types of tweaks, and how important they consider them - of course, a variety of answers, from zero interest, to everything in the box, please!
The simple equation for me is, if the components are intrinsically of high enough quality, then nothing extra is required. But the reality is that audio systems are always too 'fragile' - and need all the help they can get. Irrespective of cost, some modifying and optimising of the replay chain will benefit - the end goal is fully realistic, totally immersive, holographic 3D, "suspension of disbelief" presentation; and fiddling with the type of items mentioned in that thread will achieve such for many setups, if correctly applied.
And another contender ...
I have zero complaints about this ... the market place is getting more interesting ...
Okay, a very interesting one this time! Well, ta-dah ... two clips for the price of one, 😁
A high end setup, with the DAC being used swapped: first is with the Wadax unit retrieving the stream, and feeding a CH Precision to do actual conversion, and then Goldmund preamp, versus where the Wadax is doing the lot.
For me, this is easy ...both on laptop, and via our tweaked TV ... which do YOU prefer? And why?
I smiling at the moment ... I'm now seeing a few threads on my former haunt at audiophilestyle.com along the lines of "Why does my system start sounding a bit off after some time powered up?" ... oh dear, 😉.
I spent years on this, trying to get answers. My first good system had this really, really bad ... I never fixed it at the time, and got so discouraged I completely lost interest in high quality playback. Finally, climbed back on the saddle, and tried again ... more experiences, experiments, answers ... much better place of understanding now.
Why does it happen? Unfortunately, a number of things ... one of the easiest to understand is that the old style potentiometers used for volume control, etc, are a bit of a disaster for SQ; the way they're constructed is using poor quality surface to surface mechanical contacts, and the point where the surfaces meet deteriorate in electrical integrity over a relatively short period of time; the weak solution is to adjust the control, to refresh the contact areas - the better the setup in which they're used, the easier it is to hear the effect.
Another, more pernicious villain is static building up a charge, somewhere, which is disturbing the correct operating voltages for circuitry - they slowly move from their optimum value, to one where audible distortion becomes obvious.This is why going through a powering down, resting, and powering up again cycle always works - albeit, a very annoying 'fix' to have to rely on.
What to do about it? No easy, step by step answer - it can be a long, hard slog tracking down the cause(s). The best solution is to invest in gear which is immune to the problem; otherwise, start doing some 'debugging' - there will be an answer, eventually ... main thing is to have the patience to keep trying ideas, so that a good solution is the end point of one's efforts ...
So, why has it taken so long for more people to start asking,"What, is going on ... ?!!" ... I don't know, perhaps part of it is that only recently have systems in general advanced enough in SQ, for this to be more obvious as an anomaly, to more people.
Phew! ...Was wondering if I would come across a clip of the dCS Varese showing what it could do - and finally got one,
Note, streaming is only at 360p, but still shows good soundstaging qualities - no, not "perfect", but plenty of boxes ticked. A top class capture would improve things ... anyway, this tells me that the Varese has the goods in raw form to enable competent playback.
