Recent content by S-Man

I think a 6,000 KM round trip to compare DACs might just qualify as a journey. Or maybe it’s just a trip? 🙃

I think they are £995 in the UK. Hardly ridiculous for the engineering and quality of drivers compared to e.g. the limited edition LS3/5As at £7k. I spent several hours listening to a pair last night, used with my bass extenders, and they are superb. Far superior to LS50 Metas, JR149s, LS3/5As...

Nearly everything sounds more fluid, analogue and less shiny and bright than an ESS DAC IMO.

Imagine what it’s like doing the “journey “ 😁

My first CDP was a Marantz CD63KI. As soon as I got it home I realised it was a big mistake- bright and harsh! Fortunately the dealer allowed me to change it for an Arcam Alpha+, with the cash difference. The Arcam still works 30 odd years later, at a pals house. All my CDPs, including the...

I’m not trying to make you care - that would clearly be ridiculous 😆.

Well that’s certainly a boring video (at least the first half that I could be bothered to watch is). However it’s pretty clear that they are talking about the best LS3/5As they have heard, not the best speakers they have heard – that would clearly be ridiculous!

I use IPA. It usually takes 2 or 3 passes and it's important to wipe as much of the "solution" off the board before it dries. In effect this waters (IPAs) down the flux each time.

What is the o/p voltage of the regs? The ZTXs will get rather toasty with e.g. 60V rails = 600mW each.

Have you fitted sufficiently rated caps on the input of the NCC regs? I. e. At least 75V?

I’ve been using an active crossover between main speakers and my bass extenders for many years. I am still experimenting with trying to get a transparent unity gain stage and its associated power supply. It’s absolutely not trivial! I have tried op-amps, Naim TA buffer and other discrete...

You were lucky! Same route with Ninkas, mine went from OK to OK with weird bass when Aktivated. And when I reverse engineered the aktiv cards I found out why!

No, I have been lazy in that respect. I have got as close as I can to ideal LR2 slopes, which ought to define part of the polar response. The other factor is of course the XO frequency. The later XO crosses lower, which should help the power response at the expense of distortion.

Thought I would try my V3 crossover again (as in post #16). Initially it sounded OK, quite clear and good detail. But after a while, I lost interest in listening. Reverted to the latest one... much better. Hard to describe why it's better, it's just more engaging and has a bit of magic missing...

Update: Realised that the Wiim solution doesn't have any way to play local files and it was cheaper to go with an RPi solution. So I bought a 3B+ for £30 and a £10!!!!!! DAC HAT. It's similar to the Allo Allo Boss i.e. runs as a master with the clocks local. I have had this running in the main...