Anyone every hear any of these Schiit products? Bitfrost, etc?
"Always ready with the ray of sunshine"
Working my way through 50+ pages of a "post photos of your system" on the Hoffman site. What's with some audiophiles having tiny desk lamps over their turntables?
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
I have the Bifrost DAC and the Valhalla tube headphone preamp. I don't listen with headphones very often, but this is a very nice combo, especially with high impedance headphones like some of the Sennheisers. I also use the Bifrost as my DAC when playing computer files.
Rocky Mountain Audio Fest is this weekend in Colorado. This is an Audiophiles wet dream weekend. The best coverage of the show is at Audio Circle, by Tyson and Pez. Easy to find their day by day coverage. Some amazing reporting and great pictures and assessments of the sound in many rooms.
Enjoy
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A gentleman is defined as someone who knows how to play the accordion, and doesn't.
OK, you're going to have to strip this down to basics for me to understand. What are fully balanced outputs?
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
There's a pretty good explanation here. Here's the meat of it:
In balanced signal paths, there is a second signal conductor referred to as the “cold” line. The hot and cold lines transmit identical signals that are 180 degrees out of phase with each other. As the signal voltage in the hot line increases, the cold line’s signal voltage decreases, precisely mirroring the hot signal in reverse. The combined hot and cold signal is fed into a circuit containing what’s known as a differential input that detects any difference between the signals. Because hum and other noise are present in both conductors more or less equally, they appear to the input as in-phase signals.
The differential circuit ignores such in-phase signals, hence canceling out the noise. Amplifiers with differential circuits can cancel out most interference—up to 90 dB or more—essentially reducing noise to inaudible levels.
Balanced lines are ideal in situations involving lengthy cables and low signal levels where noise can be a problem. Mic cables are a good example of such situations. On the other hand, short cable runs carrying higher [line level] signal levels are less prone to audible noise.
So... what about balanced outputs to unbalanced inputs (or vice versa)? Any benefit?
"Always ready with the ray of sunshine"
The WSJ finds three extremely affordable tube amps.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mira...ier-1445452602
That little Hifiman would work great in my office.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
I really appreciate that this article approaches tube amps as they should be - an aesthetic choice. I personally love having a tube pre-amp in my system, but I would never objectively say it is superior to any other. FWIW, the smaller headphone ones mentioned are rather skimpy in the tube department. I tested out a Pro-Ject Tube Box pre-amp with two tubes in it a while back, and it really didn't provide much color at all to my ears. Maybe on this smaller scale you will see more from less tubes?
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Mike |
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An article from the Guardian on woo, witchcraft, and the wife approval factor:
http://www.theguardian.com/music/201...P=share_btn_fb
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Classic.The real question is: is it worth it? Does sound quality rise proportionately with price? To an extent, yes. For £1,000, or less if it’s secondhand, you can buy some good kit; £5,000 to £10,000 can buy something really special. But enthusiasts talk about a law of diminishing returns, whereby thousands of pounds extra will buy an improvement that is almost undetectable, and probably only audible to the bloke who paid the money. This is why my wife believes hi-fi is the male version of wrinkle cream – dubious claims, expensive prices, results only apparent to the buyer.
Who puts a $200,000 pair of speakers right next to a window??? Besides, they're uglier than sin.
Last edited by rcarlberg; 11-30-2015 at 11:17 AM.
What's the deal with some speaker companies using only caps instead of true crossovers and how do these caps do the work of crossovers?
The older I get, the better I was.
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