Kphinney - I would love to get together, but Friday night is date night at our house (with my wife). Maybe we should make arrangements offline. My e-mail address is duke...@gmail.com.
Phil - I absolutely agree. The analog stage is, in effect, a preamp running in a noisy environment. A poorly designed analog stage can mess up the signal just as easily as a poor DAC chip. But I was thinking that the speed of the chipsets must have improved (and become cheaper) since the DAC1 came out 7 years ago. timequest - I've also heard good things about the DL-III, and I believe you when you say it significantly improved your sound. One of the problems I'm having is how to choose the right DAC for my system. Part of the problem is that the magazines never write a negative review. Also, people that report on a DAC that they bought aren't going to say that they made a bad decision. So it's hard to compare one DAC vs another because they all sound so wonderful. No reviewer ever said that the SB3 was better than any external DAC you can name. I've heard the DAC on the SB3 and it's pretty good. So, I can't believe that all external DACs are light years better. Then there is the question of tonality. Some say that the DAC1 is very analytical, where the DL-III and Lavry are warmer. I'm not sure where the Dacmagic fits in. I would like to get a feel for whether the analytical vs. tube sound is a dominant trait - i.e. will choosing the wrong DAC totally screw up my sound or just flavor it somewhat? To be honest, I don't even know which camp I prefer to be in (analytical vs. tube sound). Anyway, I guess the best thing is to listen to as many as I can before making a purchase. But they are not readily available to test drive like we can a new car. -- duke43j ------------------------------------------------------------------------ duke43j's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=15911 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=36172 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
