jp11801

nice pick up Vicki that is a sweet amp and pretty amazing for the office rig

Well on paper the EVS should be worth the xtra $150

Gene, man I wish I was with you to celebrate, have a great day and get blisteringly intoxicated

forgot about the saturn great cdp for the cash as well

any thoughts between the Endler and EVS units? I think I will go this route for now while my stacker headphone amp/pre is being built.

sure thing, when we compared the Berendsen cdp it went against the sony scd-1 and the esound. It was slightly better than the esound and the scd-1 was better. Before I purchased the CDP1 I would buy an Ayre cx7e, exemplar 2900, or maybe even a wadia 301/302. Both the ayre and exemplar are better that the wadia but the wadia was still very good. Service from ayre and exemplar is leagues better than wadia as well, there service sucks (imho). The berendsen had transport drawer issues that created quite a storm so if you go that route make sure the drawer is working properly.

The DNA I purchased has the Rev A mods which is the TOTL plus the balanced upgrade. I am looking at getting the siltech wire upgrade when I drive down to SoCal for CanJam. I had thought about the RLD with the platinum upgrade but you never hear anyone talk about his preamp upgrades. I really wish he would upgrade the Mod Squad phono pre I have I love the thing but know he could do a nice bit in the PS and volume control. Jon any idea how much you could hear the EVS or placette in the system?

not sure if any of these will have what I am looking for but I am looking for transparency and dynamics most of all. Most pre amps in the range I am looking at have a tendency to place their hand print on the signal in a way that takes me further away from the immediacy and emotional content of the music.

actually I've heard good things about apples itunes volume control this is a snippet from the Benchmark Audio page on Apples Itunes volumes control iTunes 7.X seems to be a very good attempt at overcoming the limitations of CoreAudio. iTunes 7.X provides a high-quality 24-bit dithered volume control (the iTunes 6.X volume control was 16-bit with truncation problems). iTunes 7.X establishes a 24-bit connection with CoreAudio while iTunes 6.X was limited to 16-bit connections. iTunes 7.X attempts to avoid operating system based SRC services by providing its own very high quality SRC. Our measurements show that the iTunes 7.X SRC is so good that it should be inaudible (unless it is down sampling). An easy, all-inclusive setup is to set AudioMIDI to 96kHz before launching iTunes and keep AudioMIDI at 96kHz. This will lock iTunes at 96 kHz, which will upsample all sample-rates lower then 96 kHz. Setting the default to 96 kHz would allow playback of high-resolution 96 kHz 24-bit files without any processing, and would utilize the high-quality iTunes 7.X SRC only when playing low resolution 44.1 and 48 kHz files, or the rare 88.2 kHz file.

checked out the EVS page and after reading up a bit the best preamp in my system is no preamp. If I pump the transdac or apogee duet right into the McCormack and use itunes digital volume it sounds better than Axiom passive. Unfortunately this set up will lead to me frying my speakers when I forget to turn the itunes volume down.

Happy B-day hope you had a great one

Happy B-Day!

well I have the Moth selector box that I could pair up with the Placette remote volume control and if I bought new it has a 30 day return policy

the one I was leering at was the early pre with the phono stage, although I love my Mod Squad phono drive.

I hadn't thought about that after speaking to the Mike C at VSAC there did not seem to be that much profit in these units??

Ok so I have finally scored the DNA 1 rev A of Audiogon and partnered with my Alon 1s it sounds great. I have been using the pre outs from the Berendsen IPA-80 as well as an Luminous Audio passive volume control partnered with a Moth Audio switchbox. I am starting to set my sites on a preamp and have a few candidates: Bent Audio TAP (a bit out of range atm but still obtainable) Placette Audio passive preamp from what I have read may be tops in the transparency dept in this price range McCormacj Audio RLD preamp, these show up used for $700ish on Agon and Steve McCormack offers upgrades to them. There are three levels of upgrades 700/1100/1400, I'd probably go gusto and get the $1400 upgrade in March of 09. I had though of going tube based active like the CAT sl1, ARC sp10 or Quicksilver but from what I have read if matched correctly in my price range a passive may be the way to go. Anyone here try either the Bent audio or placette units? Both my phono pre and Dac offer enough output to drive the passive as they are doing a fine job with the Luminous Axiom at the moment.

left Yosemite last night as it was freezing and I was planning on taling off early this am anyway. Damn it was beautifull and the hike to the view point of Nevada Falls was really nice. Also Thanksgiving dinner at the lodge bar is sweet! So Vicki are you up for a Netherlands meet?

When the Shane co ads come on I puke and black out I hate those ads

I would pass on this player it's not bad but there are better in it's class

For those keeping score at home emm labs + ATC Annys > Nagra cdp + Ayre combo + Wilson Watt pups

Close enough

find a town in Europe that sounds like an American town and go there then come to the meet that way no lying or take Gail and make it a second honeymoon in Europe. Isn't Amsterdam the diamond capital of Europe.

we need to get the US domestic travel team to come over, at least Al, Mike, Gene, Wayne and Vickie....

Make it April and I am likely to go, I haven't been to the Netherlands for 10 years and could stand a good euro vacation

Jay Happy Birthday!